
^"""^t*^ """ tt * • •>'^-'ff^ VD«,Jf-» •K^^^f' \.J|,„ ../ V™^.,.^/ V.,^ 




illE MINUTE MEN OF THE KEVOLUTION. 
" We determine to die or be free." 



/6'ee pa(/e 95. 



THE TRUE STORY OF 



THE UNITED STATES 



OF AMERICA 



TOLD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



BY y 

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS 

Author of 

The Century Book for Young Americans, The True Story of George 

Washington, The True Story of Abraham Lincoln, Historic Boys, 

Historic Girls, The Story of the American Indian, The 

Story of the American Sailor, etc., etc. 



REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. 



BOSTON 
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY 



^7^ 

/ 8?S 



1S008 



Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

D. LoTHROP Company. 



Copyright, 1897, 1898, 

BY 

LoTHROP Publishing Company. 



i^'HS REC£IV£i}« 




Korfaool) \Bxtes : 
Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 



The story of the United States of America has already been told and re-told 
for young Americans by competent writers, and yet there is room for another 
re-telling. To avoid as far as possible the dreary array of dates and tlie dull 
succession of events that may comprise the history but do not tell the story — to 
awaken an interest in motives as well as persons, in principles rather than in 
battles, in the patriotism and manliness that make a people rather than in the 
simply personal qualities that make the leader or the individual, is the aim of the 
writer of this latest " Story." The future of the Republic depends on the up- 
bringing of the boys and girls of to-day. Any new light on the doings of the 
boys and girls of America's past when they grew to manhood and womanhood 
should be of service to the boys and girls of America's to-day and to-morrow. 
The hope that this volume may help as such a light has inspired its author to 
write as concisely and as simply as he is able the story of the great Republic's 
origin, development, and growth, from the far-off days of Columbus the discoverer 
to the nobler times of Washington the defender and Lincoln the savior of 

America's liberties. 

E. S. B. 

Boston, August, 1891. 



It has seemed advisable, in view of the chain of events that have made 
the close of the nineteenth century notable years in the history of the Repub- 
lic, to bring this " True Story of the United States " as nearly as possible, to date, 
and thus include the stirring episode of the war with Spain. This new 
material is here thankfully offered to those young Americans who have, by 
their approval and appreciation, made this book so gratifying a success. May 
they live to be old Americans, proud of their native land, worthy of it and 
loyal to it, as it takes position far in the van, among the great nations of the 
twentieth century. 



Boston, October, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NEW WORLD THAT WAS OLD ........ 9 

CHAPTER n. 

COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL .......... 19 

CHAPTER HI. 

THE NAMING OF AMERICA .......... 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

SPAIN AND HER RIVALS .......... 29 

CHAPTER V. 

HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD ......... 37 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE FIRST COLONISTS ....,..,.. 47 

CHAPTER VII. 

HOW THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS ........ 56 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN ......... 64 

CHAPTER IX. 

WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY ......... 74 

CHAPTER X. 

" THE LAST STRAW "........... 84 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM ........ 93 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION I OO 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION . . I09 

CHAPTER XIV. 

STARTING OUT IN LIFE .......... 1 19 

CHAPTER XV. 

"the AMERICANS" I30 

CHAPTER XVI. 

UNSETTLED DAYS . . . . . . . . . • . I4I 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE 152 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

STATE-MAKING 161 

CHAPTER XIX. 

CITIZENS AND PARTIES .......... 17O 

CHAPTER XX. 

CHANGING DAYS 180 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SHADOW OF DISCORD 1 89 

CHAPTER XXII. 

FOR UNION ............. 202 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A FIGHT FOR LIFE 213 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

A REUNITED NATION ........... 223 

CHAPTER XXV. 

AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS ..... .... 231 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

GROWING INTO GREATNESS .....,.•.. 239 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 246 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Minute Men of the Revolution Frofilis. 

Christopher -Columbus 

A dream of Cathay 

The Laurentian Rocks of the Adiron 

dack region 
" When monstrous-toed birds waded in 

the Charles " . 
An early American 
The red Americans 
A war chief of the Mound Builders 
The " canoes with wings " 
The landing of Columbus 
The young Columbus 
Amerigo Vespucci 
De Soto . 
In sight of Mexico 
A Conquistadore 
Coronado's march 
Sir Francis Drake 
Sir Walter Raleigh 
" Elbowing off " 
James I. 
Queen Elizabeth 
Disputing for possession 
Captain John Smith 
Powhatan ..... 
Prince Charles .... 
William Penn, the Younger . 
A palisaded fort .... 
Suspicious of Indians 
Dutch windmill in old New York . 




13 
14 

15 
18 

19 
20 
21 
28 
30 
31 
32 
33 
35 
36 
38 
39 
40 

41 
43 
44 
45 
45 
48 
49 
50 



Settlers from Holland approaching New 


Amsterdam .... 


51 


Cavalier and Puritan 


53 


La Salle 


55 


Longing for the old home 


57 


An old landmark .... 


58 


Going to school in 1700 . 


59 


The whirring spinning-wheel . 


62 


Stopping the post-rider . 


62 


In the chimney-corner . 


63 


The clearing 


65 


On the watch 


65 


" I would rather be carried out dead ! ' 




said Stuyvesant 


66 


Champlain and the Iroquois . 


67 


In treaty with the Iroquois . 


69 


" A witch " 


72 


A fight with pirates 


73 


New York in 1690 .... 


75 


One of King James' advisers . 


75 


In the cabin of the Mayflower 


76 


One of the villagers 


78 


A lesson in liberty . 


79 


King James TI 


81 


In Leisler's times .... 


82 


The people and the Royal governor 


83 


A smuggler 


85 


Guarding the port .... 


85 


The right of search .... 


86 


The hated stamps 


87 


Preparing for " homespun " clothes 


89 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Unwelcome lodgers . . . . 
A weak-kneed patriot and her sly cup of 

tea . 
Samuel Adams 
Paul Revere's ride . 
The bridge at Concord 
The British are coming 
" It rained rebels " 
Ethan Allen . 
" The rebels are fortifying Bunker Hill 
General George Washington . 
A " Continental " ^ 
One of the French soldiers 
Anthony Wayne .... 
John Paul Jones .... 
French's statue of the Minute Man 
Dr. Benjamin Franklin . 
John Adams prophesying " the glorious 

Fourth " 

The Liberty Bell .... 
In Marion's camp .... 
The Boston Boys and General Gage 
Threats of resistance to taxation . 
Inkstand used in signing the Constitution 
Alexander Hamilton 
George Washington 
The inauguration of President Wash 

Ington ..... 
George Rogers Clarke . 
" Borrowing fire " in old days 
" King Cotton " . . . . 
The stage coach .... 
Martha Washington 
Daniel Boone .... 

The new home in the Ohio country 
Washington's home at Mount Vernon 
Training recruits for war with France 

John Adams 

Thomas Jefferson .... 
Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon 



90 

92 
93 
94 
96 

97 
99 

lOI 

102 

105 
ic6 
106 
107 
108 
109 

IIO 

112 
114 

"5 
118 
120 
121 

123 

127 

129 
•31 
132 
133 
133 
135 
136 
137 
141 
142 
143 
145 
146 



The sale of Louisiana 

The falling flag .... 

James Madison .... 

Tecumseh, chief of the .Shawnees . 

The battle of Tippecanoe 

Andrew Jackson .... 

The ruined White House 

Keeping the old flag afloat 

Jackson's sharpshooters at New Orleans 

Ambushed in the Indian country . 

The Conastoga wagon . 

The mail boat on the Ohio 

An old-time Louisiana sugar mill . 

James Monroe .... 

Ashland, the home of Henry Clay. 

Discussing the tariff in 1828 . 

A Western flat-boat 

John Quincy Adams 

De Witt Clinton .... 

The railway coach of our grandfathers 

When every man was his own cobbler 

Washington Irving 

James Fenimore Cooper 

Daniel Webster .... 

The traveling schoolmaster . 

Andrew Jackson .... 

Martin Van Buren .... 

William Henry Harrison 

John Tyler ..... 

Anti-renters, disguised as Indians, am 

bushing the sheriff 
James K. Polk 
At Buena Vista 
Zachary Taylor 
Millard Fillmore 
Franklin Pierce 
James Buchanan 
Dinah Morris's certificate of freedom 
Among the sugar cane . 
Great seal of the " Confederacy " . 



147 
150 
151 
153 
154 

155 
156 

157 
159 
160 
162 

163 
166 
168 
170 
173 
174 

175 
177 
178 
179 
180 
181 
182 

183 
184 
186 
187 



191 
193 
'95 
197 

198 
199 

200 
203 
205 
207 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Abraham Lincoln . . . , 

Seal of the United States 

Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor 

A Louisiana tiger ... 

In the enlistment office . 

Charge of the Union troops at Gettysburg 

The turret of the Monitor 

Working for the soldiers 

The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln 

Home again ..... 

Andrew Johnson .... 

The Capitol of the United States . 

Ulysses Simpson Grant . 

Old French market, New Orleans . 

Rutherford Birchard Hayes . 

The Art Gallery .... 

Machinery Hall .... 

Sitka, the capital of Alaska . 

" The new way to India " . 

At the cotton loom 



209 


Ralph Waldo Emerson . 






235 


211 


William H, Prescott 






236 


212 


Henry W. Longfellow . 






237 


214 


Peter Cooper 






238 


215 


James A. Garfield . 






241 


g 217 


Chester A. Arthur . 






242 


220 


Grover Cleveland . 




, 


243 


221 


Benjamin Harrison 






244 


222 


The Washington Arch . 






245 


223 


In the White City . 






247 


224 


The Congressional Library 






249 


225 


William McKinley 






251 


226 


Major General Miles 






252 


227 


Rear Admiral Sampson . 






254 


22S 


Rear Admiral Dewey 






255 


229 


Commodore Schley 






256 


230 


Raising the Stars and Stripes in Hono 




232 


lulu 






257 


233 


Lieutenant Hobson 






260 


234 


Old Glory . 






261 



THE TRUE STORY OF THE 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



CHAPTER I. 



THE NEW WORLD THAT WAS OLD. 




ANY hundreds of years ago there lived in ancient Greece 
a certain wise man whose name was Pythagoras. As a 
boy he had been brought up beside the blue ^gean Sea. 
He learned to observe carefully. He became a traveler 
and a teacher and from the closest study of all the things 
around him — the earth and sky, the sun and stars, the rise and 
fall of tides, the changes of the seasons and all the every-day 
happenings of this wonderful world of ours — he announced as 
his belief a theory that men called ridiculous but which, to-day, 
every boy and girl beginning the study of geography accepts with- 
out question. '' The earth," said Pythagoras to his pupils, " is 
spherical and inhabited all over." 

That was fully twenty-five hundred years ago and yet, 
after nearly two thousand years had passed, a certain 
Italian sailor whose name was Christopher Columbus and 
who believed as did the old Grecian scholar, made the 
same statement before a council of the most learned men 
of Spain and was laughed to scorn. '• This Italian is 
crazy," they said. " Why, if the earth is round the people 




10 



THE NEW WORLD THAT WAS OLD, 



on the other side would be walkinoj about with their heels above 

their heads; all the trees would grow upside down and the ships 

must sail up hill. It is absurd. 
All the world knows that the 
earth is flat." 

But this Italian sailor was per- 
sistent ; better still, he was pa- 
tient. His life had been full of 
adventure. From his boyhood 
he had been a sailor and a sol- 
dier, a fighter and a traveler in 
many lands and upon many seas. 
He loved the study of geogra- 
phy ; he was an expert map- 
drawer ; he had noticed much 
and thought more. Believing in 
the theory of Pythagoras, famil- 
iar to Italian scholars, that this 
earth was a globe, he also be- 
lieved that by sailing westward 
heycould at last reach India — 
or Cathay, as all the East was 
called. 
For in those days, four hundred years ago. Eastern Asia was 

a new land to Western Europe. It was supposed to be the home 

of wealth and luxury. From it came the gold 

and spices and all the rare things that Europe 

most desired but which were only to be pro- 
cured by long and dangerous journeys overland. 

To the man wdio would find a sea-way to India 

great honors and greater riches were sure to 

come. So all adventurous minds were bent upon 

discovering a new, way to the East. 




CUKISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 







A DRK.VM OF CATHAY. 



THE NEW WORLD THAT WAIS OLD. 



11 



Christapher Columbus solved the problem. The surest and safest 
waj to the East, he said, is to sail west. This really sounded so 
ridiculous that, as we, have seen, men called him ci'azy and for a 
long time "v^ould have nothing to do with him or his schemes. But 




THE LAUUENTIAN ROCKS OF TIIK ADIROXDACK REGION. 



he persisted ; he gained friends ; he talked so confidently of success, 
so eloquently of spreading the knowledge of the Christian religion 
among the heathen folk of Asia, so attractively of getting, from 
these same heathen folk, their trade, their gold and their spices 
that at last the king and queen of Spain were won over to his side, 



12 THE NEW WORLD THAT WAS OLD. 

and on the third of August, 1492, with three ships and one hundred 
and twenty men, Christopher Columbus set sail from the port of 
Palos in southwestern Spain and steered straight out into what 
people called the dreadful Sea of Darkness in search of a new way 
to India across the western waters. But though Columbus was 
right in his theories and though, by traveling westward he could 
at last reach India and the East something that he knew nothing 
of lay in his path to stop his sailing westward. What was it ? 

Upon the western half of the earth's surface, stretching its ten 
thousand miles of length almost from pole to pole, lay a mighty 
continent — twin countries, each three thousand miles wide and 
joined by a narrow strip of land. KnoAvn now to us as North and 
South America this western continent contains three tenths of all 
the dry land on the surface of the glebe. It is nearly fifteen 
million square miles in extent, is four times as large as Europe, 
five times the size of Australia, one third larger than Africa and 
not quite as vast as Asia. And this was what stopped the way as 
Columbus sailed westward to the East. 

But tliough it was a new and all unknown land to the great 
navigator it is the oldest land in the world.* The region from the 
Adirondack forests northward to and beyond the St. Lawrence 
River, and known as the Laurentian rocks, is said by those students 
of the rocks, the geologists, to have been the very first land that 
showed itself above the receding waters that once covered the 
whole globe. And all along the hills and valleys of North Am- 
erica to the south as far as the Alleghanies and the Ohio the great 
ice-sheet that once overspread the earth and that was driven by 
the advancing heat nearer and nearer to the North pole, uncovered 
a land so early in the history of this western world that it was old 
when Europe and Asia were new. 

This old, old land, however, is commonly called the New World. 
That is because it was new to the Europeans four hundred years 
ago. But long before their day there had been people hving 



THE NEW WORLD THAT WAS OLD. 



13 



within what is now the United States. Away back in what is 
known to geologists as the "pleistocene period" — that is the 
"most new" or "deposit" age — when the ice was slipping north- 
ward and dirt was being deposited on the bare rocks ; when the 
verdure and vegetation that make hillside and valley so beautiful 
to-day were just beginning to tinge the earth with green ; when 
the great hairy elephant bathed in the Hudson and the woolly 




•' WHKX AIOXSTKOUS-TOED BIKDS WADED IX THE CHARLES." 



rhinoceros wallowvvi in the prairie lakes ; when the daggei-toothed 
tiger prowled through the forests of Pennsylvania and the giant 
sloth browsed on tho tree tops from Maine to Georgia ; when the 
curved-tusked mastoaon ranged through the Carolinas and mon- 
strous-toed birds waded in the Charles — there appeared, also, by 
lake-side, river and seashore a naked, low-browed, uncouth race of 
savages, chipping the flint stones of the Trenton gravel banks into 
knives and spear heads and disputing Avith the great birds and 
beasts whose trails and tracks they crossed for the very caves and 
holes in which they lived. These were the first Americans. 



14 



THE NEW WORLD THAT WA^ OLD. 



The more people mix with each other, 3011 know, the more 
friendly they become. In savage lands, to-day, tribes that are 
furious fighters against hostile tribes are linked together by some 
bond of family ties and held by some sort of internal government. 
So it was with the early Americans. As soon as they had risen 
above the first brutal desire for eating and sleeping, they learned 
the difference between fighting for food and fighting for power: 
they saw that the skins of the animals they killed could be wrapped 
about them for shelter and that a sharpened stone was a better 
weapon than one that was simply flung at their 
enemy or their game. From fighting with the 
beasts and with each other thej' began to band 
together for protection; then, those who lived 
in the more favored portions of the land grew 
a little more mindful of one another's wants; 
they made of themselves little communities in 
which fishing and hunting were the chief pur- 
suits, but where those who had the time and 
inclination began to fashion things of stone or 
clay to meet their needs. Bowls and mortars, 
knives and arrow-heads were followed in time by bracelets and 
bands, vases and pipe-bowls. Still they progressed. The com- 
munities became tribes ; some of them began to build houses, to 
make cloth, to do something more than simplj' to eat and fight and 
sleep. 

To-day all over the middle portion of the United States, from 
New York to Mis.souri, there are found great heaps of earth whicli 
wise men who have studied them say are the remains of the towns 
and villages, the forts and temples, the homes and trading-places of 
the most civiUzed portion of the American people of two or three 
thousand years ^so, and known for want of a better name under 
the term '• mound-builders." In the far Western plains and river 
courses, in Arizona and New Mexico and along the banks of the 




AM EAKLV AMliKICAX. 




THE RED AMERICANS. 

The men did the hunting, fishing and fighting" 



THE JV^EW WORLD THAT WAS OLD. 17 

mighty Colorado there exist remains of great houses covering large 
sections or perched away up in the crevices of mighty cliffs. These 
were occupied in the early days by races now called, for con- 
venience, the pueblo or house-builders and the cliff-dwellers. 

All these home-building people were, however, of the same race 
as the fierce and homeless savages who still hunted and slaughtered 
in the forests of the East or on the prairies of the West. All were 
Americans coming from the same '*^ parent stock." Some of them, 
being brighter, more ambitious or more helpful than others, simply 
made the most of their opportunities and grew, even, into a rude 
kind of civilization. 

But while these advanced, the others stood still. Here in the 
old American home-land was fought the fight that all the world 
has known — the conflict between ignorance and intelligence. The 
good and the bad, the workers and the drones, the wise ones and 
the wild ones here struggled for the mastery, a certain attempt at 
civilization which some had made went down in blood and conquest 
and so, gradually, out of the strife came those red-men of America 
that our ancestors, the discoverers and colonists from across the 
sea, found and fought with four centuries ago. 

Hunters require vast tracts of land to support them in anything 
approaching comfort ; wars and tribal hostilities prevent rapid 
growth and there were, probably, never more than five or six 
hundred thousand of the red-men of North America living within 
the territory now occupied by the United States. They were of all 
classes, ranging from the lowest depths of savageness to the higher 
forms of barbarism ; some were wild and some were wise ; some 
w^ere brutes and some were statesmen ; some were as low in the 
social scale as the tramps and roughs of to-day; some as high (from 
the red-man's standpoint) as are your own fathers and mothers seen 
from your standpoint to-day. 

The half-million red-men wdio owned and occupied our United 
States four hundred years ago, though scattered over a vast area, 



IS 



Tin: m:w wo/:l/> that was oli\ 






oi the 



speaking' tlilViM-ont languages and varying, aecording to loeatiou, 
in customs, eostunie, manners, laws and life, wore still brothers, 
springing from the same original family and having, in Avhatever 
section of the land they lived, certain things alike; they all had 
the same straight, hlaek hair; they all used in their talk the same 
sort of manv-syllabled words — •• buneh words" as they are called; 
and the\' were all what we know as connnunists — that is. they lield 

iheir land, their homes and their proiv 
erty in conunon. 

A red American's village was like 
one large family. All its life, all its in- 
terests and all its desires being shared 
jointly by all its in.mates. Just as if 
to-day, the people of Natick. or Catskill, 
or Zanesville or Pasadena should agree 
to live together in one big house witli 
little compartments for each family, eat- 
ing together from the same soup-kettle 
and dividing all they raised and all they 
found equally between all the inmates 
<\{ the one big house. The men did the 
hunting and fishing and fighting; the women attended to the home- 
work and the field labor. The boys and girls learned early to do 
their share and in the home the woman of the house was supreme. 
Even the greatest war-chief when once within his house dared not 
disobey the women of his house. 

The red-men had but a dim idea of God and heaven. They 
Avere superstitious and full of fancies and imaginings. They wor- 
shiped the winds, the thunder and the sun. and were terribly 
afraid of whatever they could not undei-stand. They had good 
spirits anil bad — those that helped them in seed time and harvest, 
in woodcraft and the chase, and those, also, that batUed and annoyed 
them when arrows failed to strike, traps to catch or crops to grow. 




COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL. 



10 



111 other words, the red-men ol" North America were but as little 
children avIio have not yet learned and cannot, therefore, under- 
stand the reasons and the causes of the daily happenings that make 
up life. 



CHAPTER II. 



COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL. 




N a beautiful October morning in the year 1402, as one of 
the red Americans belonging to the island tribes that 
then lived on what we know as the Bahama group, 
southeast of the Florida coast, parted the heavy foliage 
that ran almost down to the sea on his island home of 

Guunahani, he saw a sight that very nearly took his breath away. 

Just what it was he could not at first make 

out, but he thought either that three terrible 

sea-monsters had come up from the water to 

destroy his land and people or that three great 

canoes with wings had dropped from the sky 

bringing, perhaps, to the folks of Guanahani 

some marvelous message from the spirits of 

the air of whom they stood in so much awe. 
Gazing upon the startling vision until he 

had recovered from his first surprise he 

wheeled about and dashed into his village to 

arouse his friends and neighbors. His loud 

calls quickly summoned them and out from the 

forest and through the hastily parted foliage 

they rushed to the water's edge. But as they the " -^anoes with wings.' 




20 



COLUMBUS THE ABMIBAL. 



gained the low and level beach they too stood mute with terror 
and surprise. For, from each of the monster canoes, other canoes 
put off. In them were strange beings clothed in ghttering metal 
or gaily colored robes. Their faces were pale in color ; their hair 
was curly and sunny in hue. And in the foremost canoe grasping 
in one hand a long pole from which streamed a gorgeous banner 
and with the other outstretched as if in greeting stood a figure 
upon whom the Americans looked with wonder, reverence and 
awe. It was a tall and commanding figure, noble in aspect and 
brilliant in costume and as the islanders marked the marvelous 
face and form of this scarlet-clad leader they bent in reverence 

and cried aloud " Turey ; hirey ; 
they are turey!'''' (Heaven-sent.) 
On came the canoes filled with a 
glittering company and gay with 
flutterinu; flairs. But as the first 
boat grounded on the beach and 
the tall chief in scarlet, his gray 
head yet uncovered, the flaming 
banner still clasped in his hand, 
leaped into the water followed 
by his men the terrified natives 
thought the spirits of the air were come to take vengeance upon 
them and, turning, they fled to the security of thicket and tree- 
trunk. But led back by curiosity they looked again upon these 
strange* new-comers, and behold! they were all kneeling, bare- 
headed, upon the sand, kissing the earth and lifting their eyes 
toward the skies. 

Then the scarlet-mantled leader rising from the ground, planted 
the great standard in the sand and drawing a long and shining 
sword he spoke loud and solemn words in a language the wonder- 
ing islanders could not understand, while those marvelous figures 
in glittering metal and gleaming cloth knelt about him as if in 




THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS. 




THE YOUNG COLUMBUS. 

" It xoas the realization of a life-long dream, first dimly conceived by him in his 
boyhood days at Genoa." 



COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL. 23 

worship. They kissed their chieftain's hands, they embraced his 
feet and raised such loud and joyous shouts that the simple 
islanders piizzl'id yet over-awed supposed all they saw to be signs 
of the devoutest adoration. '■^ Turey ; hirey V they cried again. 
" He is heaven-sent." And then they, too, prostrated themselves 
in adoration. 

Who wore these pale-faced visitors who had come in such a 
startling way across the eastern sea ? Not for years could the red 
Americans into whose lands they came understand who they were 
or why they had visited them, although they learned, all too soon, 
that there was little about the new comers that was godlike or 
heavenly. The pale-faced strangers deceived and ill-treated the 
simple natives from the first and for four hundred years the red- 
men of America have known little but bad faith and ill-treatment 
at the hands of the white. 

But we who have heard the story again and again know who 
were these white visitors to Guanahani and from whence they 
came. For the leader of that brilliant throng that knelt in thank- 
fulness upon the Bahama sand — this chieftain, whose followers 
clustered about him and raised applauding shouts while he took 
possession of the new-found land in the name and by the authority 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain — this scarlet- 
mantled captain Avhom the wondering natives worshiped as a 
god, was that Christopher Columbus, the wool-comber's son, the 
enthusiast whom men had lauo-hed at as a madman and a '' crank," 
the patient, persistent Italian adventurer who was now because of 
his great discovery owner of one tenth part of all the riches he 
should find. Lord Admiral of all the waters into which he should 
sail and viceroy of all the lands of this New Spain upon whose 
sunny shores he had set foot. " I have found Cathay," he cried. 

It was a glorious ending to long years of toil and struggle. 
It was the realization of a life-long dream, first dimly conceived by 
him in his boyhood days at Genoa. With firm and unwavering 



24 COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL. 

faith Columbus IkuI overcome all odds. He had been despised 
and ridiculed, threatened and cast aside ; lie had gone from court 
to court in Europe vainly seeking aid for his enterprise ; and Avhen, 
at last, this Avas cautiously given, he had bra\ed the terrors of an 
unknown sea with three crazy little vessels and an unwilling corn- 
pan}^ of a hundred and twenty men. For days and days he had 
sailed westward seeing nothing, finding nothing, while his men 
sneered and grumbled and plainly showed that, if they dared, 
they would gladly have flung their captain overboard and turned 
about for home. At last signs of land began to appear — vngrant 
seaweed and floating drift wood, land birds blown off the shore 
and warm breezes that almost smelled of field and forest. And 
then, one day, at midnight the admiral saw a moving light that 
told of life near by and finally in the early morning the cry of 
Land ! from the watchful lookout, Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor on 
board the Nina, told that the end of the long waiting at last had 
come and that Cathay was found. 

It was on the morning of Friday the twelfth of October, 1492, 
that Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani and solemnly 
named the island " San Salvador." The rich veo-etation, the dark- 
skinned nati\'es, the rude but glittering ornaments in their ears 
and on their arms alike strengthened his belief that his plans were 
all successful and that he had found the land of gold and spices he 
had sailed away to seek. He had promised to find the Indies and 
because by sailing westward he had come upon what he supposed 
to be certain rich islands off the India coast these islands were 
called and have ever since been known as the West Indies, while 
the red natives Avho inhabited both the islands and the vast conti- 
nent beyond have ever since been called by the name the Spanish 
discoverers gave them — Indians. 

It was all a mistake. Columbus had sailed westward to find 
India and had found a new world instead, a world that was to prove 
of greater value to mankind than ever India would or could. But 



COLUMBUS THE ADMIRAL. 



25 



to the clay of his death Columbus beUeved he had found the land 
he sought for. " I have gone to the Indies from Spain by travers- 
ing the ocean westwardly," were almost his last words. And 
although he made four voyages across the Atlantic, each time dis- 
covering new lands and seeing new people, he still believed that 
he was only touching new and hitherto unknown islands off the 
eastern coast of Asia. 

And so for a while all the world believed. No conqueror ever 
received a more glorious reception on his home-coming than did 
Columbus, the admiral. He entered the city of Barcelona, where 
the king and queen waited to receive him, in a sort of triumphal 
procession. Flags streamed and trumpets blew ; great crowds 
came out to meet him or lined the ways and shouted their 
welcome and enthusiasm as he rode along. Captive Indians, 
gaily colored birds, and other trophies from the new-found 
land were displayed in the procession and in a richly deco- 
rated pavilion, surrounded by their glittering court, King 
Ferdinand and Isabella the queen received the admiral, bid- 
ding him sit beside them and tell his wonderful story. 
Honors and privileges were conferred upon him. He was 
called Don, he rode at the king's bridle and was served and saluted 
as a grandee of Spain. 

Columbus, as has been said, made four voyages to America. But 
after the second voyage men began to understand that he had 
failed to find India. The riches and trade that he promised did not 
come to Spain and many an adventurer who had risked all for the 
greed of gold and the return he hoped to make became a beggar 
through failure and hated the great admiral through whom he 
expected to win mighty riches. Enemies were raised up against 
him ; he was sent back from his third voyage a prisoner in disgrace 
and chains, and from his fourth voyage he came home to die. 

But neither failure nor disgrace could take away the glory from 
what he had accomplished. Gradually men learned to understand 




26 



THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 



the orreatness of his acliiovement, the virtue of his marvelous 
perseverance, the strength and nobiUty of his character. After his 
death the people of Spain discovered that he had opened for them 
the way to riches and honor ; by the wealth of " the Indies " that 
Columbus brought to their feet their struggling land was made one 
of the most powerful nations of the earth; and though some people 
have said that Columbus did not discover America, but that French 
fishermen or Norwegian pirates were the real discoverers, we all 
know that, until Columbus sailed across the sea, America was un- 
known to Europe and that, for all practical purposes, his faith and 
his alone gave to the restless people of Europe a new world. 
America was better than Cathay, for it has proved the home of 
freedom, hope and progress. 




CHAPTER III. 



THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 



OLUMBUS, as you have heard, did not know that he had 
discovered a new world. He thought he had merely 
touched some of the great islands off the eastern coast of 
Asia. Even when, in the month of August, 1498, he first 
saw the mainland of America, at the mouth of the river 
Orinoco, he did not imagine that he had found a new continent, but 
believed that he had discovered that fabled ri^^er of the East into 
which, so men said, flowed the four great rivers of the world — the 
Ganges, the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile. 




THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 



27 




But his success set other men to thinking, and after his wonder- 
ful voyage in 1492 many expeditions were sent westward for pur- 
poses of discovery and exploration. After he had found " Cathay" 
every man, he declared, wanted to become a 
discoverer. There is an old saying you may 
have heard that tells us "nothing succeeds 
like success." And the success of Columbus 
sent many adventurers sailing westward. 
They, too, wished to share in the great 
riches that were to be found in '' the lands 
where the spices grow," and they believed 
they could do this quite as well as the great 

admiral. Once at a dinner given to Columbus a certain envious 
Spaniard declared that he was tired of hearing the admiral praised 
so highly for what any one else could have done. " Why," said 
he, "if the admiral had not discovered the Indies, do you think 
there are not other men in Spain who might have done this ? " 
Columbus made no reply to the jealous Don, but took an o^^^ from 
its dish. " Can any of you stand tliis Q<g'g on end ? " he asked. 
One after another of the company tried it and failed, whereupon 
the admiral struck it smartly on the table and stood it upright on 
its broken part. "Any of you can do it now," he said, "and any 

of you can find the Indies, now that I have shown you 

the way." 

So every great king in Europe desired to possess new 

principalities beyond the sea. Spain, Portugal, France, 

England alike sent out voyages of discovery westward — 

" tryino; to set the eiro; on end." 

Of all these discoverers two other Italians, following 

where Columbus had led, are worthy of special note — 
John Cabot, sent out bv King; Henry the Seventh of Ens-land in 
1497, and Amerigo or Alberigo Vespucci, who is said to have sailed 
westward with a Spanish expedition in the same year. Both of 




28 



THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 



these men, it is asserted, saw the mainland of America before 
CoUmibus did, and England fonnded her claims to possession in 
North America and fought many bloody wars to maintain them 
because John Cabot in 1497 "first made the American continent" 
and set up the flag of England on a Canadian headland. In that 
same year of 1497 Cabot sailed along the North American coast 
from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson ; and Vespucci, although this 
is doubted by many, sailed in the same year along the southern 

coast from Florida to North Caro- 
lina. In 1499 Vespucci really did 
touch the South American coast, 
and in 1503 he built the first fort 
on the mainland near the present 
city of Rio de Janeiro. 

Both these Italian navigators 
thought at first, as did Columbus, 
that they had found the direct 
way to the Indies, and each one 
earnestly declared himself to have 
been the first to discover the main- 
land. At any rate Vespucci could 
talk and Avrite the best and he had 
many friends among the scholars 
of his day. When, therefore, it 
really dawned upon men that the 
land across the seas to which the genius of Columbus had led them 
was not India or " Cathay" but a new continent, then it Avas that 
the man who had the most to say about it obtained the greatest 
glory — that of giving it a name. 

Wise men who have studied the matter deeply are greatly puz- 
zled just how to decide whether the continent of America took its 
name from Amerigo Vespucci or whether Vespucci took his name 
from America. Those who hold to the first quote from a very old 




AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 



SPAIN AND HER RIVALS. 



29 



book that says " a fourth part of the world, since Amerigo found it, 
we may call Amerige or America ; " those who incline to the other 
opinion claim that the name America came from an old Indian 
word Maraca-pan or Amarca, a South American country and tribe ; 
Vespucci, they say, used this native word to designate the new 
land, and upon its adoption by map-makers deliberately changed 
his former name of Alberigo or Albericus Vespucci to Amerigo or 
Americus. 

But whichever of these two opinions is correct, the Italian astron- 
omer and ship chandler Vespucci received the honor and glory that 
Columbus should have received or that Cabot might justly have 
claimed, and the great continent upon which we live has for nearly 
four hundred years borne the name that he or his admirers gave to 
it — America. 



CHAPTER IV. 



SPAIN AND HER RIVALS. 



FTER the year 1500 ships and explorers followed each 
other westward in rapid succession. SjDain, as she had 
started the enterprise, still held the lead and secured most 
of the glory and the reward. France sought a footing on 
the northern shores, England aAvoke slowly to the value 
of the Western w^orld, but for nearly fifty years Sj^ain stood alone 
in the field of American discovery and conquest. 

And Spain's hand was heavy. The nation was greedy for gold ; 
America was thought to be a land of gold and every exertion was 




30 



SPA IJV A ND 11 Eli li IV AL S. 




^-T^l 



made to obtain great stores of the precious metal. For this the 
ships sailed westward while the " gentlemen-ndventurers" thronged 
their decks ; for this thev coasted up and down the land, killing the 

trusting natives without pity, or turning 
y^ them into slaves to help on their greedy 
search. The first question on landing was: 
Which way does the treasure lie ? and the 
new comers could scarcely wait but would 
rush where even the slenderest promise 
pointed with the cry, " Gold, gold ! " upon 
their lips. 

But this restless hunt for o'old i^ave the 
knowledge of new lands to the world. In 1500, Captain Cabral 
the Portuguese navigator discovered the shores of Brazil ; that 
same year, thousands of miles to the north, the French sailor 
Gaspar Corterenl landed upon Labrador ; in 1-508 Vincent Pinzon 
entered the Rio de La Plata and the Spanish gold-hunters find- 
ino; the Indians not hardy enoufi-h for work in the mines sent over 
African negroes to take their places, and thus introduced into 
America the curse of negro slavery; in 1511 Diego 
Velasquez, with three hundred men, conquered the 
island of Cuba; in 1512 John Ponce de Leon, seek- 
ing for a magic fountain that, it was said, would 
make him youno; again, discovered Florida but not 
the magic spring; in 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, 
still looking for the coveted si-old, crossed the Istli- 
mus of Darien and discovered the Pacific Ocean ; in 
1519 Hernando Cortes with five hundred and fifty 
men sailed to the conquest of Mexico and completed 
his bk)oay Avork ni less than two years; m lol'J 
Francisco de Garay explored the Gulf of Mexico ; in 1520 Lucas de 
Ayllon explored the Carolina coast ; in 1522 Fernando Magellan 
sailed around the world : in 1524 tlie Italian captain Verrazano 




s 









Cc 




SFAJJV AND HER RIVALS. 



33 



sailed with a French expedition into Narragansett Bay imd New 
York harbor; in 1531 the cruel Pizarro with scarce a thousand men 
overthrew the Inca civilization of Peru and conquered all that coast 
for Spain; in 1535 Jacques Cartier, a French navigator, explored the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and set up the arms of France on the banks 
of the great river of that name ; in 1535 the Spanish captain 
Mendoza with two thousand men conquered all the great silver 
country about the Rio de la Plata ; in 1537 Cortes, sending an 



expedition north- 
covered the reo-ion 
De Soto with 



the conquest f^m^ ^ 

"[KeKnioUc 

con)e to thet 

p I. avii 




ward along the Pacific coast, dis- 
called California; in 1539 Fernando 
a gallant army, landed in Florida for 
of all that countr3% and marched 
westward to his death ; in 1541 
1^' Chile was conquered by Spanish 
troops and Orellana the advent- 
urer made the descent of the 
Amazon from its source to iti 
mouth ; in 1543 De Soto's broken 
expedition came sadly back, a sorry 
emnant only, leaving its leader dead 
beneath the waters of the o-reat river he 

o 

had discovered — the mighty Mississippi. 

It is a long and adventurous record, in which 
Spain bears almost all the glory, is it not ? But 
so for fifty years did Spanish ships and Spanish 
soldiers " the Conquistadores " or conquerors, as 
they were called, sail and march hither and 
thither, exploring and conquering, making a few settlements at im- 
portant points from which they might send home the riches they 
had collected, getting themselves hated by the red men whom 
they tortured and enslaved, and growing each year more and more 
greedy for the gold they never seemed able to get enough of. 

Whoever is greedy is certain to be disliked, for he who tries to 




IN SIGHT OF MEXICO. 



34 



jSFAij^" and her rivals. 



appropriate everything generally finds that other people object to 
such an appropriation. Four hundred years ago the Pope of Rome 
was believed to be the head of the Christian world. To him kings 
and princes gave obedience and his word was law. When Portugal 
— by reason of her discoveries in Africa and Asia — and Spain, be- 
cause of what Columbus had found across the western seas, appealed 
to Rome for authority to possess the lands, the Pope drew a line on 
the map and said : " All discoveries west of this line shall belong to 

Spain ; all east of it shall belong to 
Portugal." 

But there were other nations that 
objected to such a division. England, 
as we have seen, claimed the right to 
possess America because of Cabot's dis- 
covery in 1497, and France whose 
fishermen had for years sailed westward 
to the shallow places or " banks " off 
Newfoundland where codfish were to be 
caught, laid equal claim to the Ameri- 
can shores. For years they did not 
openly dispute with Spain, for the ships 
and explorers of that nation kept to 
the south in their search for gold, while France kept to the north. 
Verrazano, in May, 1524, had landed near Portsmouth, N. H., and 
in 1537 Captain Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River 
as far as Montreal. Other French ships followed, and though Spain 
grumbled loudly and threatened all sorts of harsh things to France 
for thus sailing into " her territories," for a while nothing was 
done because Spain still held that the most valuable part of America 
was to the south where the gold mines lay. 

But now England awoke to the fact that Spain's greediness must 
be stopped, and that some of the good things that were being found 
in America ought really to come to her. The king of England 




SPAIN AND HER RIVALS. 35 

quarrelled with the Pope of Rome, and denying the right of the 
Pope to give away the new world to Spain, King Henry the Eio-hth 
and his daughter the famous Queen Elizabeth began to send their 
ships and fighting-men into the very regions that Spain had held 
so long — the West Indies and South American waters. Captain 
William Hawkins, his son, Captain John Hawkins, and the brave 
Sir Francis Drake were the most celebrated of these early Eno-Hsh 
sea-captains who dared the might of Spain. They worried the 
Spaniards terribly; they stormed their forts, captured their ships 
and seized their stores of goods and merchandise, and by their 
daring and their audacity so enraged the Spaniards, that for over a 
hundred years the waters all about the West India Islands and the 
lands which were known as the Spanish Main, were the scene of 
bloody battles and cruel revenges. These old English- 
men Avere brave men though they were cruel fighters, 
as indeed were all men in those bloody times. Captain 
John Hawkins kept his ^ ships together by these excel- 
lent directions : " Serve God daily ; love one another ; 
preserve your victuals ; beware of fire ; and keep good 
company." And Sir Francis Drake, who was the first 
of Englishmen to discover the Pacific Ocean, and who in 
1578 made a famous voyage around the world, was so 
feared by the Spaniards against whom he fought con- 
tinually, that they called him " the English dragon." 

Other noted Englishmen who made themselves famous in Ameri- 
can discovery were Martin Frobisher who tried to find a way around 
America by sailing to the north ; Sir Humphrey Gilbert who twice 
tried to make a settlement in North America and the story of 
whose shipwreck in the Swallow has been told in a beautifid poem 
by Longfellow ; Captain John Davis, whom you know in geography 
as the brave mariner for whom Davis' Straits were named ; and Sir 
Walter Raleicrh who o-ave the knowled2:e of tobacco to the world 
and made the first Eno;lish settlement in North America in 1587. 




SIK FKANCIS DKAKE. 



36 



SPAIN AND HER RIVALS. 



But, before Raleigh, settlements had already been made m what 
is now the region known as the United States. John Ribault and 
Rene de Laudonniere, French Protestants both, in the years 1562 
and 1564 settled French colonies in Florida only to be horribly 
killed by the Spaniards who claimed the sole right of occupation of 
that beautiful summer land. In 1565 the Spaniards founded St. 

Augustine and in 1570 tried 
to make a settlement on the 
Potomac River, but failed. The 
Spaniards even penetrated into 
the country as far north as Cen- 
tral New York, but all their 
colonies north of Florida were 
failures. In 1540 a Spanish 
captain named Coronado, set 
out from Mexico to find a won- 
derful land of gold known as 
the "Seven Cities of Cibola." 
He led a most remarkable march 
across the western territory of 
the United States almost as far 
north as the present city of 
Omaha. But he failed to find 
the seven fairy cities he sought 
or even the gold he hoped to 
bring away ; though, had he but 
known it, his march across New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado was 
over more gold than he ever dreamed of — but it was sunk deej) 
down in mines beneath the earth. 

So, all through the sixteenth century, from 1500 to 1600, went on 
the fight between Spain and France and England for the possession 
>f the western world. Excejit in the far south, in Mexico and the 
West Indies, in Brazil and Peru, few settlements were made. It 




sill W ALTi:U UALlilGH. 



HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



37 



was simply a gold-hunt for a hundred years. At length Europeans 
began to understand that the riches of the New World were in its 
splendid climate and its fertile soil, and learned to know that future 
success was to be found only by those who made homes within its 
borders. Then it was that the gold-hunt ceased and the explorers 
were followed by the colonizers. 



•"ib^ 




CHAPTER V. 



HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



^ HAVE seen bojs and girls — have not you ? — wiio. wiien 
■ all had equal chances, would rush to the best strawberry- 
patch, or the fullest blackberry-bush, or the best place for 
a sight of some passing procession and cry out, " Ah-ha ! 
it's mine. I got here first ! " Such a display of selfishness 
is certain to make their companions angry, especially if the finders 
refuse to share their good fortune. 

Well — there was a certain wise old poet (Dryden, his name was' 
who after studying the ways of the world declared that 




" Meu are but childreu of a larger growth," 



38 



HOMES IN THE NEW WO ELD. 



and the settlement of America is good proof of this. For each nation 
as it found a footing in the new world cried out to the rest of Europe, 
just like selhsh children : " It's mine. I got here first ! " 

And it does seem as though for fully a hundred and fifty years — 
from 1600 to 1750 — the European settlers in North America spent 

a good portion of their time in 
trying to push one another off 
the little spots of earth on which 
they stood, shoving and elbowing 
each other and growling out : 
" Get off ; this is my ground ! " 
or: ''Get off, yourself; I've as 
much right here as you ! " 

The Spaniards pushed away the 
French and the English elbowed 
off the Dutch and the Dutch 
crowded out the Swedes until at 
last, with a grand shove, the 



English pushed off Spaniards, 
Dutchmen, Frenchmen and all, 
occupying the whole of North 
America from the St. Lawrence 
River to the Gulf of Mexico. 

At first the colonies that set- 
tled in America were started for 
money-making purposes. Those 
who founded them came for pur- 
poses of trade or because they hoped to make a living in the new 
world more easily than they could at home. Strange stories were 
told of the riches that were to be found in America. "Gold," so 
one man said it had been told him, " is more plentiful there than 
copper. The pots and pans of the folks there are pure gold, and as 
for rubies and diamonds they go forth on holidays and pick them 










"ELBUWING Ol'l'. 




HOMES IN THE NEW WOELB. 39 

up on the seashore to hang on their child renV coats and stick in 
their children's caps." 

So the lazy people who wished to get rich at once without hard 
work, sailed over to America only to be terribly 
disappointed. But with all these money-seeking 
adventurers went also many hard-working and 
many good and kind people who reall}^ desired 
<B. ■-— homes in the new world or hoped to be able to 
help the "red salvages," as they called the In- 
dians. Brave preachers or missionaries of the 
Roman Catholic Church went ahead even of the 
French explorers and settlers ; they carried the 
knowledge of the Christian religion to the wild Indians of Canada, 
who never could seem to understand what the good missionaries 
sought to teach them and, too often, thinking that because the 
"black robes" came from hostile tribes they must be enemies, tor- 
tured and killed them. To the English colonies, also, came men 
and women who had a deeper purpose than simply to make a living. 
They came because they found it so hard to agree upon religious 
matters with those in authority at home, and because they hoped 
in a new land to be able to live together in peace and with the 
right to worship God as they pleased. 

All this was in the early years of 1600. There had been settle- 
ments formed already within the limits of what is now the 
United States, but they were not permanent. r"' '^^-."^ 

In 1565 the Spaniards had founded the present city of St. p-^Wr 
Auo;ustine in Florida, makino; it thus the oldest town in the Ifill^kJfM 
United States, but this place while in Spanish possession had ^HHJ^ 
no association with any of the other North American settle- jamks i. 
ments and can scarcely be considered as belonging to them. 

In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh had attempted to plant an English 
settlement on Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast, but the 
houses and colonists he left there had disappeared forever when 



40 



HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



help came over the seas to them, and to this day no one knows 
what ever became of " the lost colony." 

In 1606, however, the attention of some of the rich men or capi- 
talists of England Avas directed toward the importance of America as 

affording a fine chance for busi- 
ness investment, and in that 
year two wealthy corporations 
were formed for the purpose 
of colonizing the New AVorld. 
These corporations were called 
the London Company and the 
Plymouth Company. To these 
Companies King James of Eng- 
land granted the right to trade 
and colonize in the land along 
the Atlantic Coast from Halifax 
to Cape Fear. Of this vast ter- 
ritory the Plymouth Company 
w\as to control the noi-thern half 
and the London Company the 
southern. 

No sooner were these Com- 
panies formed than they set 
about carrying out their plans 
for trade and settlement. On 
the first of January, 1607, an 
expedition consisting of three ships and over one hundred colonists 
sailed from England, sent out by the London Company to settle the 
lands where Sir Walter Raleigh had lost his colony and which he 
had named Virginia, in lionor of the famous Queen Elizabeth, who 
because she never married was known as " the Virgin Queen." 
They landed at Jamestown in Virginia, 

The most promment man in this company of adventurers was 







^V 




\ 



QUKKN ELIZABKTH. 




DISPUTING FOR POSSESSION. 

" This is my ground." 



HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



43 



Captain John Smitli. His life is one exciting story, A rover and 
a fighter from liis boyliood, he had been in many lands and had 
had many surprising adventures. 
His life in Virg-inia was no less 

o 

remarkable. When provisions 
failed and disaster and death 
threatened the colonists, Smitli 
by his wise and energetic meas- 
ures found them relief although 
many of them were so jealous 
of his superior ability, that they 
sought to drive him away. But, 
notwithstanding their envy, he 
worked with hand and brain to 
make the settlement at James- 
town a success. He made friends 
with the Indians ; he procured 
from them food for the succor 
of his starving comrades, and, at 
the risk of his own life, again 
and again carried the struggling 
colony through the dark days of 
its beginnings. But he did brag 
terribly. 

The Indians of Virginia were 
at first friendly to the settlers. 
But they soon learned to dis- 
trust and dislike them, and but 
for the watchfulness of Captain 
John Smith jind the good-will of 
a little Indian girl whose name 
was Ma-ta-oka, sometimes called Pocahontas, the settlement at 
Jamestown would soon have been utterly destroyed. Pocahontas, 




Q^hefi arc the LltlCS, that JlicrV tfty~Face;hutthofc 
rjlidt PiaW tfiy Grace ani^lory, trtejkttr bsc : 
Cj'hv Taii'C-I>iJcoticnes and I'owlc- Ovtrthrowes 
Of SalvagCS,mvcfu Civillizi hj- 'tkcCX^ 
'licjhjhzw tfiy Sjint;and p ib Glory aVyi 




fffj°j ifi^ntl?c/haJoji Smiths cytilis a hearz) 

Ci"ie^ t^fii art Virhas; 
{To GiQaaia. JlTitf: 



44 



HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



who was the daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan, proved her- 
self in many ways the friend of the white people, and it is sad to 
think that after her friend Captain Smith had left the colony, the 
settlers repaid her kindness by trying to kidnap the Indian girl so 

as to force food and corn from 
her father. Powhatan the chief 
was very angry, and threatened 
to destroy the colony, but just 
then a certain English gentleman 
whose name was Rolfe, fell in 
love with Pocahontas and mar- 
ried her, and, at her request, 
Powhatan made a lasting peace 
with the white men. It is said 
that two presidents of the United 
States, William Henry Harrison 
and his grandson Benjamin Har- 
rison, are descended from this 
Indian girl wdio married the 
Englishman. 

Captain John Smith was so 
deeply interested in America that 
he wrote and talked about it a 
great deal. He made a map of 
what he called New England, and 
the young English prince Ch'jrles 
(afterwards the king who lost his head) dotted it all over with make- 
believe towns to which he gave the names of well-known towns in 
England. Captain Smith told another English captain whose name 
w^as Henry Hudson, some of his ideas, and in 1609 Captain Hudson, 
saihng in the service of Holland, remembered some of Captain 
Smith's words and hunted up and explored the beautiful river that 
now bears his name — Hudson River. At the mouth of this river 




caBlcriflianci Se!;Ui-~^ah>i Inf. C'lr/li htm. ^aU^dPi , * 



II03IES IN THE NEW WORLD. 



45 




'IIINXE 



in 1014 the Dutch, as the people of Holland are called, made a 
settlement which they named New Amsterdam. The colonists 
were sent out by a rich corporation in Holland called the 
Dutch West India Company, formed like the London and 
Plymouth Companies for the purpose of trade. They were 
sent to the Hudson River country to purchase furs from 
the Indians. This little fur post Avas the beginning of the 
great city of New York. 

Captain Smith's favorable report of the New Eng^land 

CHARLES. 1 r 

coast and that of other explorers 
who had sailed from Maine to Lons; Island 
Sound, turned the attention of settlers in 
that direction, but the first real settlement 
was made in 1620 by a body of English 
exiles known to us as " the Pils-rims." 
Driven first to Holland by religious perse- 
cution, they sailed from Delft Haven in 
the Mayflower under arrangements w^ith 
the London or Virginia Company, as it was 
sometimes called, intending to settle some- 
where near the Hudson River. By some 
mistake they did not reach Virginia but 
striking to the northward, landed first at 
Cape Cod and, afterward — on the twenty- 
second of December in the year 1620, 
stepped ashore on the gray boAvlder fa- 
mous as Plymouth Rock, on the Massa- 
chusetts coast, and there, in the bleak 
winter of 1620-21, founded a sorry litth 
settlement tliat was the beorinnino; of New 
England. 

Within the next fifty years other settlements were made along 
the Atlantic coast by emigrants from Europe — most of them from 




WILLIAM PEXX THE YOUNGER. 



46 HOMES IN THE NEW WORLD. 

Eno'land — who desired to build for themselves homes in the New 
World. In 1623 Captain John Mason made tw^o settlements on the 
Piscataqua River in New Hampsliire — one at Dover and one at 
Portsmouth. In 1634 certain English Roman Catholics seeking 
relief from persecution, settled on the Potomac River in Maryland. 
In 1635 people from the Plymouth Colony settled at the mouth of 
the Connecticut River, and in 1636 Roger Williams, a good but out- 
spoken man who could not agree on matters of religion with his 
Massachusetts brethren, was driven from the colony and with some 
of his followers founded Providence in Rhode Island. In 1638 a 
company of emigrants from Sweden settled on the shores of Dela- 
ware Bav ; in 1640 certain Virginia colonists w'ho could not agree 
on religious matters with their neighbors, set up for themselves at 
Albemarle in North Carolina ; in 1670 William Sayle brought a 
company of English settlers across the sea ancLfounded Charleston 
in South Carolina; in 1664 a settlement was made at a place called 
Elizabeth in New Jersey; in 1682 William Penn the younger, a 
famous English Quaker, wdth one hundred of his associates settled 
in Pennsylvania where now stands the great city of Philadelphia ; 
and, years after, in 1730, the English soldier General Oglethorpe 
with one hundred and twenty colonists, settled in Georgia on the 
site of the present city of Savannah. 

These thirteen settlements along the Atlantic coast were the be- 
ginnings of the United States of America. As you see they were 
for the most part made by people wdio were not satisfied because 
things at home did not suit them ; and they were, in most cases, 
backed by the capital of rich men who saw in the new land an 
opportunity to make money and, at the same time, help the i)oor 
or the persecuted folks who were anxious to escape from their 
home troubles. 

They occupied but a narrow strip on the ragged sea-border of a 
vast and unexplored continent ; their beginnings w^ere full of dis- 
appointment and disaster ; their future was imcertain and yet these 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



47 



thirteen struggling settlements were in time to be reckoned by 
England as among the most important and at the same time the 
most troublesome of all her possessions in foreign lands. 



, . ,. ly - , , ,■ 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE FIEST COLOXISTS. 




HEN we remember how many kinds of people go off to set- 
tle in new countries and the reasons that draw them there, 
we shall not be at all surprised to learn that the settlers 
along the Atlantic border of North America two hundred 
and fifty years ago, did not have the easiest sort of life or 
the pleasantest of times as they tried to make homes for themselves 
in the midst of all that wilderness. Even though we try to do so, 
we can scarcely picture to ourselves the three thousand miles of 
coast line from Maine to Georgia as it looked in those early days. 
For, try as we may, we shall not be able to think of it other than as 
it exists to-day — cleared of its woodland, studded with 
noble cities and alive with a crowding and busy throng of 
men and women, boys and girls. Then, in all New Eng- 
land, the forests ran down to the sea ; behind the white 
sands of the New Jersey and Carolina beaches, the land 
was dark with monstrous pines, while over all the land 
prowled the wolf and the bear, the buffalo and the elk, 
and all manner of wild wood beasts that we can now only 
find in menageries, if at all. Not a horse or a cow lived 
in all North America ; those now here are descendants of 
the stock brought over by the European settlers. 




48 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



Here iind there, througliout the kind, were scattered Indian vil- 
lages in Avhich lived a people that no white man dared to trnst, be- 
cause no white man could understand their manner of thought and 
life, while roving bands in the hunting and fishing season came into 
the settlements to exchange their peltry for the wonderful labor- 
saving tools the Avhite man had brought with him, or to pry about 
and make husl^and and housewife suspicious and uncomfortable. 

All about the little settlements rose the uncleared forests in whose 
depths and shadows lurked they knew not what dangers. The 
woodman's axe had made but small openings as yet, and near at 
hand stood wooden block-house, clumsy fort or picketed palisades as 
the sole protection against lurking Indians or the still more savage 
foeman of France or Spain. 

Neither store nor shop, wareroom nor manufactury were to be 




A I'ALISADKD FOUT. 



found when food ran short or household stuffs were needed, and all 
who lacked must go without or starve until such time as the supply 
ship, braving storm and wreck, came sailing over-sea. 

But, more than all this, the ijcreatest dano-or to the struyrfflino: 
settlements lay in the colonists themselves. Here were peoplt^ of 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



49 



all sorts and conditions — the poor and the proud, the sick and the 
well, the good and the bad, the weak and the strong, the wise and 
the foolish, the worker and the drone, the dissatisfied and the indif- 
ferent, the over-particular and the careless, every class and every 
kind of men, women and children whom poverty, discontent, poli- 
tics, persecution, restlessness, 
greed, love and ambition had sent 
across the sea to struggle in a new 
world for the homes or the ad- 
vantages they had lost in the land 
of their birth. Quarreling and 
jealousies over rights and privi- 
leges ; privation and distress from 
lack of sufficient food or proper 
home surroundings ; disease, sick- 
ness and death — all these sprung 
up in or visited each little settle- 
ment, cutting down its numbers, 
stirring up discontent and strife 
or hindering its growth when 
most it needed gentle influences, 
sturdy workers and healthy and 
honest lives. 

And yet in spite of all draw- 
backs the settlement slowly grew. 

Along that narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea, 
from Maine to Georgia, were planted in the years between 1620 
and 1700 the seeds from which has sprung a mighty nation of free- 
men. Before 1620, twelve hundred and sixt3^-one persons had been 
sent to the various " plantations " of the Virginia Company ; by 
1634 the Massachusetts colonists had grown to between three and 
four thousand in number, distributed in sixteen towns. There were 
frequent disputes at first as to the ownership of the land and just 




SUSPICIOUS OF INDIANS. 



50 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



what the different companies or proprietors had the abiUty to 
promise or the right to give awa}^, but these gradually grew less, 
until at length the only bar to the complete English possession of 
the Atlantic coast from Pemaquid to Charleston, was the little 
Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson River. 

Three hundred years ago there were two questions that more 
than any other perplexed people. These were : where and how to 

live and where and how to go to church. 
The Old World was so full of struggle be- 
tween kings and princes, lords and ladies, 
as to just who had the strongest arm and 
just who should be the ruler, that the peo- 



ple who were not of high rank were 
looked upon as fit only to fight for this 
side or for that. Their trade or occupa- 
tion was interfered with and followinii; 
this or that party might make a man a 
pauper in a day or cost him his life on the 
battle-field or his head on the scaffold. 
When, therefore, the settlement of a new 
land far away from all this strife and risk, 
offered opj)ortunity for whosoever had 
pluck enough or ambition enough to try 
for fortune in fresh fields, those who loved 
money, those who loved ease, those who 
loved freedom and those who loved life, hastened to make the 
most of the opportunity and sailed to the Virginia Plantations, or 
the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam at the mouth of the Hud- 
son. Trade in tobacco and trade in furs speedily made both these 
sections centers of business, and the Virginia planters and the New 
Netherland " factors " built up a steadily growing trade with the 
home markets in England and Holland. 

The question as to where and how to go to church was equally 




DUTCH \VI.\0.\HLLS IN OLD NEW YOKK. 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



53 



important. When Martin Luther in Germany and King Henry the 
Eighth in England broke away from the Roman CathoUc Church, 
men bes-an to think for themselves more and more, and new sects 
and new opinions sprung up in the churches. This led to what is 
called freedom of thought, but it led also to discussions, quarreling, 
persecution and death. People who held certain religious opinions 




CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 



were very firm in their new faith ; the people who believed other- 
wise were equally firm, and so it came to pass that they could not 
live together in peace and charity. Upon this those who Avere of 
the weaker or persecuted party looked abroad for some place where 
they could live as they chose, going to the church of their choice 
and mingling with those who believed as they did. These too 



54 THE FIRST COLOy^ISTS. 

hailed America as the place they sought, and thus was Massachu- 
setts settled by the Pilgrims and the Puritans, Marjdand by the 
Roman Catholics, Virginia by the Episcopalians and Pennsylvania 
hy the Quakers. 

But even in the new land all was not peace. For the colonists 
had not brought across the sea that brotherly kindness that is 
called the spirit of toleration. That was to be gained only as the 
outgrowth of American life and American freedom. So, from 
Maine to Georgia the different church sects were jealous of one 
another; they argued and quarreled, refused to live together in 
unity and showed the self-same spirit of intolerance and the same 
inclination toward persecution that they had fled from in England, 
France or Holland. 

But in spite of religious differences and political jealousies, of 
opposition to trade and neglect by those at home who had promised 
them support and succor, the thirteen colonies on the Atlantic bor- 
der slowly extended their clearings and enlarged their numbers. 

The date of the first permanent settlements along the seaboard 
- — not counting the Spanish at St. Augustine — were the French at 
Port Royal in Nova Scotia in 1605, the English at Jamestown in 
Virginia in 1607, the French at Quebec in Canada in 1608, the 
Dutch at New Amsterdam (afterward New York) in 1613 and the 
English at Plymouth in Massachusetts in 1620. 

The French settlement of Canada does not properly fall within 
our plan of this story any more than does the Spanish settlement of 
Mexico, for neither Canada nor Mexico have yet become parts of 
the United States, but the enterprise and energy with which the 
priests and soldiers, the lords and ladies, the traders and peasants of 
France sought to found a vast colony among the lakes, the rivers 
and the forests of the North, are worthy of remembrance. Here 
Cartier had made discoveries ; here Chainplain, bravest and most un- 
tiring of Frenchmen, rightly named " the Father of New France," 
h;id founded and fought-; here Marquette the missionary and La 



THE FIRST COLONISTS. 



55 



Salle the trader lived and labored, arid, becoming pioneers, pushed 
westward, discovering the Ohio and the Mississippi Eivers and, by 
right of this discovery, establishing the claim of France to all the 
mde western country beyond the AUeghanies. But all this vast 
section, as we shall see, from Canada to Louisiana, was finally 
secured from France by the power of England or the wisdom of 
the United States. 

The beginnings of home-life in the New World which we have 
already noticed as the " first permanent settlements," soon led to 
other attempts at colonization. The founding 
of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 was followed 
by that of Henrico and Bermuda in 1611 and 
of other "plantation" settlements in 1616. In 
New England the struggling Plymouth colony 
of 1620 was followed by the settlements at 
Little Harbor (or Portsmouth) in New Hamp- 
shire in 1623, at Pemaquid near the mouth of 
the Kennebec River in Maine in 1625, at Salem 
in Massachusetts in 1628, at Boston in 1630, 
at Providence in Rhode Island in 1636, and at 
Hartford and New Haven in Connecticut in 
1635 and 1638. The Dutch settlements at 
New Amsterdam (New York) and at Renselaerswyck (Albany) in 
1623 and at the Wallabout (Brooklyn) were the principal centers 
of Dutch life, while at Philadelphia in 1682, at Port Royal and 
Charleston in South Carolina in 1670 and 1680 the Europeans broke 
ground for homes in a new and untried land. From these as cen- 
ters other towns were started and in 1700 the population of the 
Atlantic coast settlements extending from Pemaquid in Maine to 
Port Royal in South Carolina had reached upwards of two hundred 
thousand. During all these early years the colonists had but little 
in common ; their life and labor were largely confined to the places 
in which they had come to mr^ke their homes, and a journey from 




56 HOW THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS. 

New York to Boston was almost as uncommon as is to-clay a trip to 
Central Africa or a A^oyage to the Friendly Isles. 

Their forms of government, too, for these first years were differ- 
ent. One by one, however, the colonies were taken out of the 
hands of the Companies and Lord Proprietors by whom they had 
originally been planted and were made roj^al jDrovinces of England ; 
and, in 1700, the Avord of the King of England Avas laAV throughout 
all the thirteen colonies of the English Crown. 




CHAPTER VII. 

HOAV THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS. 

»— _— • HERE are fcAv boys and girls to-day, hoAvever tenderly 
brought up, Avho do not enjoy getting aAvay from their 
comfortable homes for a fcAv days in the summer and 
"roughing it" in some out-of-the-Avay " camp " by river, 
lake or sea. But, after a Avhile, this summer " roughing " 
grows disagreeable and the longing comes for the nice things and 
modern con\'eniences of home. 

Life in the thirteen colonies in America tAvo hundred and 
fifty years ago Avas the hardest kind of " roughing it." Con- 
veniences there Avere none, and even necessities were few. Many 
of the ncAV settlers could not stand the life. Some returned across 
the sea to the homes they had left ; some, unable to endure the 
privations they had to undergo, sickened and died in their new 
homes ; but those who did survive or who could stand the home- 
sickness, the dangers and the diseases Avliich all alike must face and 



HOV/ THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL BAYS. 



57 



ishare, toughened under hardship, grew strong and sturdy and self- 
rehant, and became the ancestors of that hardy race which has built 
np into prosperity these United States of ours. 

As you have learned from the previous chapter, the early colonists, 
alone and in a strange land, had to depend upon themselves for 
almost every thing they needed to support life or give them the few 




LONGING FOR THK OLD HOME. 



necessities and fewer comforts they must have. The ground had to 
be cleared of its forests, broken and ploughed and prepared for grain 
and grass, for vegetables and fruits. Many a time did those first 
comers suffer for food. The " starving time " of 1610 in Virginia, 
and the famine of 1623 in the Plymouth colony, were hardships that 



68- 



HOW TUEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAY IS. 



very nearly destroyed the feeble settlements ; often the people of 
Plymouth in those first days had nothing but clams to eat and water 
to drink. And yet one of their faithful ministers, Elder Brewster, 
could in the midst of such a terrible lack of food thank God that 
" they were permitted to suck of the abundance of the seas and ot 
the treasures hid in the sand." AVas not that an heroic patience ? 

The first houses were the roughest of shelters — holes dug in the 
ground and hastily roofed over; then, flimsy bark huts or rudely- 
made log cabins ; houses of hewed logs or of planks, hand-split or 
hand-sawed from selected forest logs. Finally, as wealthier people 
came to the settlements more substantial houses of wood or stone 
were built. Sometimes, the " finishing touches," the doors and win- 
dows, even the very bricks themselves of which the gable 
plqf ends of the houses were built, were brought across the sea 
>^=^ ^ ...v«.v,-^5s^ fj^on^ Ensrland or Holland 

^^-^ '^^ for the adornment of these 

more pretentious houses. 
Certain of these old land- 
marks may now and then 
';]\j' If ':;.'"- '^ ^ — — be found to-day, standinu;, 

still strong, though gray and 
weather-beaten. I recall one 
such in which I have spent many a happy hour, a mile or so back 
from the Hudson River, just across the New Jersey line — its ends 
built of little Dutch bricks brought across from Holland, its quaint 
and startling mantel of pictured tiles descriptive of Old Testament 
history, its floor of still solid hand-hewed planks, its massive rafters 
dark with smoke and age, and over the Dutch half-door the date of 
building set in burned brick in the front of field stone. And in the 
old Jackson house at Andover, in Massachusetts, the chimney was so 
huge that two or three mischievous fellows, fastening a rope about 
one of their number, lowered him down the chimney until he 
reached the spot where hung a " fine fat turkey set aside for the 




:^»?i; 






:>^ •;. >'i]y,:i:^'f;'v 



AN OlA) I.A.ND.MAKK. 



irOW THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS. 61 

wedding dinner of Master Jackson's daughter." Then thief and 
booty were aUke pulled up the chimney, and of the wedding turkey 
a stolen feast was made. 

Within the house the rooms were few, but the kitchen, with its 
huge fireplace, supplied with seats and settles, was at once kitchen, 
dining and living room ; it was the center of the home life ; its 
rough but strong home-made furniture, its wooden table-dishes and 
clumsy " kitchen-things " would be deemed by us of to-day as suited 
only to the hardest kind of " roughing it." There w^ere, of course, 
finer houses built as the years went by and the people prospered, 
but even the finest mansions had but few of what we now call con- 
veniences — few indeed of what we hold as necessities — and even the 
most highly-favored children of those early days endured privations 
that the boys and girls of our day would grumble at as unbearable. 

Porridge for breakfast, mush or hasty pudding for supper, with a 
dinner of vegetables and but little meat at any time were the daily 
meals of our ancestors. Life in all the colonies w\as rouoh and 
simple, and though we of to-day who expect so much would find in 
it much to complain of, it does not seem to have been altogether 
uncomfortable as the settlements grew and the fields became more 
productive, the crops more plentiful and the larder more bountifully 
supplied. Except in the cities — such as Boston, New York and 
Philadelphia, where English manners and English fashions gradually 
crept into the wealthier families — the w^ardrobes of parents and 
children were scanty and plain. They were usually of homespun 
stuff, for the whirring spinning-wheel was the best-used belonging 
of every household. Leather breeches and homespun jackets were 
worn by father and son, but on Sunday or at times of festivity and 
holiday, there was a display of lace rufiles and silver buckles and a 
certain amount of style and finery. The windmills ground the corn 
that the fertile farms produced ; the post-rider galloped from town 
to town with news or messages ; the roads were poor ; the streets in 
the few towns were poorly paved and illy lighted ; the field work 



62 



HOW TIIEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS. 



w.as the "-rent thinu' to be clone, and strict attendance at cliurcli on 
Sunday with two-hour sermons to occupy the time was the main 

privilege of .young and old. Schools were 
rare and never long-continuing. In the 
South little was done toward the general 
education of the children, and many of the 
boys and girls in the earl}^ days grew to 
manhood and womanhood unable to write 
their names. But as time went on more 
attention, in the Northern colonies, was 
devoted to the children's schooling. The 
instruction given was slight, „ 




THE WHIKRING SPINNING- WHEEL. 



and " book-learning " was con- 
fined to a stud}^ of the cate- 
chism and of " the 
'ritin', and 'rithme- 



f 



"h 



three R's" ("reading, 

tic "), while the ferule and the birch rod 
plaj^ed an important part in the school- 
master's duties. 

There were few wagons for hauling stuff 
or carriages for riding. Pack horses were 
the only expresses on land ; boats and small 
coasting schooners — ketches and snows, as 
they were called — carried the heavier 
freiorhts and merchandise alonsr the coast 
or up and down the rivers. 

Indian corn in the North and tobacco in 
the South were the principal things raisad 
and cultivated. Fannin 2: tools and utensils 
were clumsy and unhandy as compared with 
those of to-day, and it was a long time be- 
fore the new farm lands were cleared of stumps and rocks. Many 
of the New England settlers were fishermen, and as the years went 




STOPPING THE POST-RIDER. 



HOW THEY LIVED IN COLONIAL DAYS. 



63 



on they built many vessels for use in the ocean fisheries. Ship- 
building, in fact, soon grew to be rai important industry along the 
Atlantic coast, and only six years after the settlement of New 
Amsterdam (New York), a "mighty ship" of eight hundred tons 
was built and christened the " Nieuw Netherlands ; " but it proved 



so big and cost so much that it 



well-nigh ruined the enterprising 
Dutchmen who built it and not for 
two hundred years after was so great 
a vessel attempted in America. 

Where there was so much work 
to be done and so few ways of mak- 
ing it easy there was not much time 
for rest or sport. People went to 
bed early so as to be up early in the 
morning; but the men and boys 
when they could find the time en- 
joyed themselves hunting and fish- 
ing, while many of them grew to be 
hunters by occupation. Deer and 
wild turkeys were plenty in the 
woods ; wild geese and fish swarmed 
in lake and river ; foxes and wolves, 
bears and panthers were sometimes 
far too plenty for the farmer's comfort and a constant war was kept 
up against them with trap and gun and fire. 

^ Life was rougher and harder then than now and the bovs and 
girls were not allowed to be wasteful of time or food or clothes. 
The beadle and the tithing-man, the town-crier and the rattle-watch 
made things unpleasant for mischievous young people, and there 
was httle of that freedom of association between parents and chil- 
dren that is one of the pleasantest features of the home and family 
life of to-day. In every village. North and South alike, the stocks 




IN THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. 



64 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



and pilloiy, the whipping-post and ducking-stool stood in plain view 
as a warning to all offenders, and as a result people were hardened 
to the sight of punishment and hoy^ and girls would even stand by 
and make sport while some poor law-breaker was held hand and 
foot in the pillory or some scolding woman was doused and drenched 
on the ducking stool. 

Yes, it was a hard life, judged by our standards, when every one 
had to "rough it" in those early colonial days. But though we 
may not feel that the '^ good old times " we read about could really 
have been so very enjoyable, after all, as we understand '' good 
times," we do know that to the struggles and trials, the privations 
and efforts, the labors and results of two hundred and fifty years ago 
are due the pluck and perseverance, the strength and glory that 
made America " the land of the free and the home of the brave/' 



B£Z 



:»z^; 



■>."-8.-.aSM>3J 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIX. 



unploughed land and unfelled forests had been the only 
obstacles with which the early colonists had to contend, if 
wolf and bear and panther had been the only living ene- 
mies against which they had to struggle, then would the 
settlement of America have been as easy a task as is 
to-day the starting of new towns in Dakota or Washington, or the 
cultivation of the reclaimed lands of Arizona and Idaho. But everj^ 
step of the path toward prosperity had almost to be fought for 
ao-ainst foes without and foes within. 




FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN 



65 




THE CLEARING. 



The dread of Indian attack was an ever-present terror, and for 
this no one was to blame save the white men themselves. From 
the very first dav of discovery the red men and the 
white had failed to understand one another. Had 
Spaniard and Englishmen but met the Indians 
in the spirit of friendship, of justice and of 
helpfulness much blood and sorrow might have 
been avoided. But from the very first the In- 
dians learned to distrust the Europeans. The 
white man's greed for gold and for land made 
him careless of the red man's rights and more brutal even than 
the wild natives of the American forests ; it made him mean and 
base and cruel and quickly turned the wonder and reverence of 
the Indian to hatred and the desire for reveno-e. 

When the Frenchmen came a second time to Florida they found 
the pillar which they had set up to display the arms of France 
garlanded with flowers and made an object of Indian reverence ; 
when the Pilgrims huddled, half-famished, upon the Plymouth shore 
Samoset the Abneki walked in amono- 
them with his greeting "Welcome, Eng- 
lishmen!" and found for them food and 
friends ; when Maqua-comen, chief of the 
Paw-tux-ents, helped the Maryland colo- 
nists of 1634 to found a home he said : " I 
love the English so well, that if they 
should go about to kill me, if I had so 
much breath as to speak I would command 
my people not to revenge my death, for I 
know that they would do no such a thing 
except it were through my own fault." 

But this early loving-kindness was shortr 
lived. The red and white races could not mingle peaceably when 
the white man wanted all that he could get and the red man loved. 




ON THE WATCH. 



66 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



SO strongly, the land of his fathers. From Maine to Florida the 
war-whoop took the place of welcome and the deadly arrow quickly 
followed the gift of corn and fruit. Block-house and palisaded 
fort alike became the object of Indian attack and of stubborn 
defense, and the hardy troopers and "train-band men" of the 




"I WOULD It.VTIIKU m; CAltKIF.U OUT DKAD ! " SAID STUT^TESANT. 



colonies repaid the horrors of Indian ambush and massacre with 
the equal horrors of burning wigwams, the hunt with bloodhounds 
and the relentless slaughter of chieftain, squaw and child. 

Added to the terror of Indian hostilities was the dread of " for- 
eign " invasion. With France and Spain alike claiming the right of 
occupation, the English colonists could never rest in peace, while, 
for the same reason, the Dutch settlements in the New Netherlands 
(a section extending from the Connecticut to the Mohawk and from 
Lake George to Delaware Bay) were in constant fear of attack by 
England. For the New Netherlands this came at last. When in 
1664 an English fleet sailed through the Narrows and dropped 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



67 



anchor before the little fort at New Amsterdam, the stout and stern 
Dutch governor Stuyvesant had no choice but to surrender to a 
superior force. " I would rather be carried out dead !" he cried 
passionately when he saw his duty. But resistance was useless. 
New Amsterdam lowered the flag of Holland ; the English colors 
waved above its ramparts and the New Netherlands became " the 
Province of New York." 

Every war in Europe had its effect in America. The quarrels of 
the kings were fought out in the forests and on the shores of the 
New World and the wiser treatment of the Indians by the French- 
men of Canada always gave 
to France the terrible ad- 
vantage of Indian allies. 

The only exception to this 
was the steadfast friendship 
toward the English of the 
powerful Indian republic 
known as the Iroquois, or 
" Five Nations " of Central 
New York. Their real In- 
dian name was Ho-de-no-sau- 



nee or " people of the long 




house," so called because of 
the great buildings in which 
they lived. The French cap- 
tain and explorer Champlain, 
had foolishly quarreled with 
them in the early days of 
European occupation, and these warlike tribes had never forgiven 
France, but remained such firm friends, first of the Dutch and then 
of the English occupants of New York State, that they were for 
years the strongest bar against the French conquest and occupation 
of England's colonies. 



CIIAMPLAI.V AND THE IKOQUOIS. 



68 FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

In the Old World across the sea France and England had always 
quarreled, ever since they had become France and England ; in 
America they quarreled just the same. France said that b}^ the 
right of discovery all the land between the Alleghanies and the 
Rocky Mountains belonged to her ; England asserted that the land 
she had taken on the Atlantic seaboard extended ^vestward to the 
Pacific and belonged to her. So they quarreled about the land. 
Then France was Roman Catholic wliile England was Protestant, 
and in those days Catholic and Protestant were bitter enemies. So 
they quarreled about religion. But, most of all, France wanted to 
control the fisheries of the American coast ; so did England. France 
was determined to " monopolize " (as we sa}^ now) the fur-trade of 
North America ; so was England. So they quarreled about trade. 
And when men quarrel with one another over land, religion and 
trade, it becomes a pretty serious matter in which neither side will 
give in until one or the other is defeated for good and all. 

This struggle with France really extended from the first capture 
of Quebec by the English on the nineteenth of July, 1629, to its 
final capture on the thirteenth of September, 1759 — a period of one 
hundred and thirty years. The treaty of peace between France 
and England, signed in 1763, gave to England all the French pos- 
sessions in America east of the Mississippi River, and the bloody 
quarrel as to who owned the land came to an end. 

The most famous of the Indian wars of colonit^l times were what 
are known as the Pequot War of 1637 and King Philip's War in 
1675. They were dreadful times of massacre and blood and held all 
New England in terror. But the colonists finally prevailed. The 
Pequot War was brought to a close by the terrible assault on the 
village of Sassacus, the Pequot chief, by Captain John Mason and his 
men ; King Philip's War was ended by the fearless methods of Cap- 
tain Benjamin Church, a famous Indian fighter, and the* treacherous 
murder of the chieftain Metacomet, whom the white men called 
^' King Philip." 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 71 

The dates to be especially remembered in the wars with France 
are the bin-ning of Schenectady in the province of New York by the 
French and Indians in 1690, the capture of Port Royal in Nova 
Scotia by the English in 1710, the capture of the great fortress of 
Louisburg on Cape Breton Island in 1745, General Braddock's de- 
feat by the French and Indians on July 9, 1755, the surrender of 
Fort William Henry to the French on August 9, 1758, the capture 
of Fort Duquesne by the English on November 25, 1758, and the 
decisive battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 in Avhich both the 
rival generals, Montcalm the Frenchman and Wolfe the English- 
man, were killed and the victory for England closed the hundred 
years of war. 

Distressing to the colonists as must have been these foes without, 
even more disheartening must have been the foes within. For 
troubles in the home are the hardest of all to bear. And almost 
from the first days of settlement, such troubles had to be faced. As 
we have seen, all sorts of people came over the sea to America, 
expecting to be at once successful or rich or at the head of affairs ; 
disappointed ambition or unsuccessful endeavors made them cross 
and jealous and angry with those who fared better than themselves 
and those who were the most discontented, because of their own 
shortcomings, were always ready to stir up trouble. Then there 
were the questions of ownership and the disputes between colonies 
as to how far their limits of possession reached ; and, quite as hotly 
contested as any, were the religious quarrels in which the most 
earnest and most conscientious Avere also the most bigoted and vin- 
dictive, answering questions Avith persecution and arguments with 
banishment. Thus was Roger Williams, who differed with the min- 
isters of Boston, driven out in 1635, but, undismayed, settled in the 
Rhode Island wilderness and founded the city of Providence ; thus 
was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, the earliest of women reformers, also 
driven out from Boston to meet her death from Indian arrows in 
the dreadful New York massacre of 1643. Thus were over-zealous 



72 



FOES WITHOUT AND WITUIN. 



Quakers whipped ''at the cart's tail" by the Dutch rulers of New 
Amsterdam and hanged on Boston Common by the Puritan rulers 
of Massachusetts Bay ; from this cause the " Papists " as the Roman 
Catholics were called, were imprisoned in New York ; the Baptists 
were mobbed in Virginia ; Puritans and Papists came to open 
warfare in Maryland, and " Dissenters " and " Churchmen " broke 
into fierce conflict in the Carolinas. 

From all this you can see that people in those old 
days were not as high-minded, as open-hearted, as 
liberal or as " kindly-affectioned one to another " — 
as the Bible has it — as are peojDle to-day. Educa- 
tion, freedom and union have made us brothers at 
last. And, when people are bigoted and narrow- 
minded, they are apt to be superstitious and cruel. 
Our ancestors of two centuries ago were full of the 
oddest imaginations as to good and bad luck ; their 
fathers had been so before them. They especially 
feared the influence of witches. If anything went 
wrong an evil spirit, they said, had " bewitched " 
things and at once they hunted about, not to see 
why things went wrong, but what witch had made 
them o-o wrouQ". 

Now so many things went wrong in the early 
colonial days, that the poor settlers begun to think 
the witches had followed them across the sea, and 
when one or two of their ministers — in whom they 
had perfect confidence — said that this was so, of 
course everybody believed it and the hunt for the 
witches began. It was a dreadful time. In almost all the colonies 
innocent people were persecuted or put to death under the supposi- 
tion that they were witches and had worked their evil " spells " 
upon other people, or upon cattle, crops and homes. But, harshest 
of all, was the time in New England when, from 1G88 to 1692, 




FOES WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



73 



the famous "Salem witchcraft" persecution terrified all the peo- 
ple and led to some dreadful tragedies. Twenty persons were put 
to death as "witches" in Salem before the end came, and the 
people slowly recovered from what was a disease of the mind 
almost as universal as was " the grip " in 1890. 

And besides all these troubles of mind and body that faced our 
forefathers, were others equally hard 
to bear. Pirates infested the coast, 
robbing and killing, making travel 
by sea unsafe and business ventures 
risky, while — so it was asserted — 
men of wealth and prominence 
among the colonists were partners 
in piracy with such freebooters as 
Bonnet and Worley in the Carolinas, 
Teach or " Blackbeard " in Philadel- 
phia and Captain Kidd in New York. 
Debts and taxes oppressed the colo- 
nists as the cost of Indian wars and 
the exactions of the home government ; while, as cruel as anything 
in the eyes of a peoj)le who were learning to live alone in a great 
land, the tyrannical measures of their English rulers, who deprived 
them of the rights already granted them by charter and sought to 
make them simply money-getters for England, wrought them to the 
highest pitch of indignation and set them to thinking seriously as 
to some means of relief. 

But hard knocks and rough ways, often, we say, " make a 
man " of the young fellow who has to undergo them. And so it 
proved with the thirteen colonies of England in North America. 
The struggle with foes without and foes within made them at last 
strong, determined, self-reliant and self-helpful. Bigotry and per- 
secution, jealousy and selfishness in time gave way to the more 
neighborly feelings that the necessity for mutual protection and 




A FIGHT WITH PIRATES. 



74 WOIiKIXG TOWARD LIBERTY. 

the growth of mutual desires create, the Avisdom of a union of in- 
terests became more apparent and year by year the colonies came 
nearer and nearer together in hopes, in aspiration and in action. 



CHAPTER IX. 



WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY. 



f^^f'tf^X^ i*^ the restless people who have pushed the world along. 
W|^ I I If every one had been satisfied with his lot or had been 
:i^^J: i JL I willing to put up with things as they were no progress 
,r^^|| I would have been possible. Some one must "start things." 
t^S^S/.!,: , , , 1 And, to do this, he who tries to " start things " must be 
dissatisfied with his surroundings or his prospects; he must be 
indignant over oppression or injustice or indifference (for not to 
take care of people is sometimes fully as bad as to bully and distress 
them) ; he must be ambitious to advance himself or his fellow men 
and determined to better things if he possibly can. 

There were numbers of such people wdio came over to America ; 
there w^ere still more born and brought up here amid all the 
influences toward liberty of thought and action that a new land 
creates. They and their fathers had left a world where titles were 
esteemed of more worth than character and where there was, as 
yet, too little belief in the truth that an English poet of our day 
has put into verse : 



" Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

'Tis onlj' noble to be jjood. 
Kind hearts are more tlian coronets, 

And simple faith than Xonnan l>lood." 



wo EKING TOWARD LIBERTY. 



75 




NEW YORK IN 1690. 



When boys get away from home and men from the restraints of 
government they are very apt to want to strike out for tliemselves 

and they object more than ever 
to any attempt of the far-away 
"powers that be" to tell them 
what they must do amid their 
new surroundings or how they 
must do it. So, at an early day, 
men in America began to think 
about freedom and to plan for a 
nobler living than was possible in 
the land they had left behind. For, when active, earnest people 
are really thrown upon their own resources they are bound to think 
and act for themselves. 

One of the first of such acts was the Virginia Charter of 1618 — 
" the beginning of free government in America." This charter 
was a paper secured by the Virginia colonists giving them the privi- 
lege of dividing the lands they had come to settle into farms which 
each man could own and work for himself. It also gave them a 
voice in making their own laws and permitted them to say 
who should speak for, or represent them in the " General 
Assembly " of the colony. To us who have never known 
anything different this does not seiem like a great conces- 
sion ; but it was in those days, when no man was really 
free. And King James, like the crabbed old tyrant he 
was, was very angry at what he called the presumption 
of the people. So in 1624, with the help and at the sug- 
gestion of some of his very wise but very stupid advisers, 
he took away all these rights and made the colony a kingly 
" province." But the ideas of personal liberty that the 
Avise framers of the Virginia Charter had put into that 
early paper lived and became, in later years, the basis for the 
Constitution and the Government of the United States of America. 




ONE OF KING JAMES 
ADVISERS. 



76 



WOBKING TOWARD LIBERTY 



The next step toward liberty' was a remarkable paper or " com- 
pact" drawn up and signed in the cabin of the Mayflower by the 
Plymouth colonists who, because of their wanderings, have been 
called "the Pilarrims." AVe call it remarkable because it was a 

o 

bold thing to do in those days when the people had so little to say 
about their own srovernino;. 

As the little vessel lay tossing off Cape Cod on the eleventh of 




IN THE CABIN OF THE MAYFLOWER. 



November, 1620, the forty-one men who represented the different 
families united in the enterprise of colonization, set their signatures 
to the following compact which is said to have been " the first in- 
strument of civil irovernment ever subscribed to as the act of the 



WOEKIN-G TOWARD LIBERTY. 77 

whole people." Here it is for you to study out in all its curious 
old-time wording, spelling and capitals : 

-Imf Name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwriten, 
the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by y^ 
Grace of God, of Great Britaine, France & Ireland King, Defender 
of y^ Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for y' Glorie of God, and ad- 
vancemente of y^ Christian Faith and Honour of our King and coun- 
trie, a Voyage to plant y' first Colonic in y« Northerne part of 
Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutually in y^ Pres- 
ence of God, and of one another. Covenant & Combine ourselves 
togeather into a Civill body Politick, for our better Ordering & 
Preservation & Furtherance of y^ ends aforesaid; and by Vertue 
hearof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equall lawes, 
ordinances. Acts, Constitutions & Offices, from Time to Time, as 
shall be thought most meete & convenient for y*^ generall good of 
y" Colonic, unto Avhich we promise all due submission and obedience. 
In witnes whereof we have hereunder subscribed our Names at Cap. 
Codd y^ 11 of November, in y' year of y<^ Raigne of our Soveraigne 
Lord King James, of England, France & Ireland y*^ eighteenth, and 
of Scotland y^ fiftie fourth, ano : Dom. 1620." 

Nineteen years later — on the fourteenth of January, 1'639 the 

*' freemen " of the three river towns of Connecticut (Windsor, Hart^ 
ford and Wethersfield) met at Hartford and drew up what is said to 
be the first written constitution in the world. This paper did not 
recognize the right of any king or parliament to direct the actions 
of the people of Connecticut, but held all persons who were allowed 
a share in the affairs of the colony to be freemen. Under the arti- 
cles of this constitution the people of Connecticut lived for nearly 
two hundred years. 

The forms of government gradually adopted by the several col- 
onies taught men to stand alone and think for themselves. In 
Virginia, as we have seen, it was a " General Assembly," or " Housa 



78 



WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY 



of Burgesses," as it was more frequently called, elected by the 
people. In New England it was what is known as a " township " 
government in which the people of the various towns taxed aiid 
governed themselves upon a basis settled once a year by the grown 
men of the colonies in a coming together called the "• town-meeting." 
The town-meeting also elected to office the men who were to manage 
public affairs during the year. In South Carolina a popular election 

in the several " parishes " or church divisions 
of the colony selected the minister and ves- 
trymen of the church and the representatives 
to the colonial assembly. In Marjdand and 
Delaware the people of the different sections, 
or "'hundreds" as they were called — (from 
the old Roman word for a brotherhood, curia, 
whence came century, hundred) assembled in 
" hundred-meetings," enacted by-laws, levied 
taxes, appointed committees and helped to 
govern themselves. In Pennsylvania the 
officers of each local division or "county" 
were elected by the people. In New York 
the old system of village assemblies estab- 
lished by the early Dutch settlers was con- 
tinued b}^ their English successors ; this, by 
direct vote of the people in a sort of town- 
meeting, selected the governing body of the town for the coming 
year. 

So, you see, the colonists almost from the start learned to govern 
themselves and were taught the lesson of freedom. But, above the 
people, as the direct representative of the English king, stood the 
Royal Governor. He was generally a favorite or " pet " of the king ; 
he was as a rule good for nothing as a man and worse as a governor ; 
and he was sent over to keep the people •" up to the mark" in the 
service of a king three thousand miles away. The king and his 




ONE OF THE VILLAGERS. 




A LESSON IN LIBERTY. 

Tfieij began to think and talk and aeC." 



WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY 



81 



governor were certain to have ideas and methods altogether differ- 
ent from those held by the people, who knew their own needs and 
were not slow to speak up for them. The Royal Governor was, in 
the opinion of the colonists, forever interfering in matters which he 
could not understand and in which they were deeply interested. 
There was, therefore, a continual quarrel going on between the gov- 
ernor appointed by the king and the people iie had been sent over 
the sea to govern. 

This quarrel dated from the early years of colonization, and some- 
times led to popular uprisings, to blows and blood. When royal 
commissioners were dispatched to Virginia in 1624 to take away 
the liberties granted by the "charter," the "Burgesses" boldly 
Avithstood them, and, when the commissioners bribed the clerk of 
the Burgesses to give up the records, the tempted clerk was put 
into the pillory by his associates and had 
his ear cut off. In 1638, and again in 1645, 
William Clayborne in Maryland headed an 
armed protest against Governor Calvert and 
Lord Baltimore ; in 1676 the plucky Vir- 
ginia colonist, Nathaniel Bacon, stood out 
boldly against the obstinate and tyrannical 
Governor Berkeley, and, in what is known as 
" Bacon's Rebellion," forced the governor 
to terms, but died before victory was fully 
attained, the first popular leader in America. 
In North Carolina, in 1678, John Culpepper 
iieaded a rising against the high-handed rep- 
resentative of the absent Royal Governor, who denied the people's 
" free right of election ; " in 1688 the enraged colonists of the Caro- 
linas rose against their governor, Seth Sothel, took away his author- 
ity and banished him for a year. In 1687 and 1689 the colonists 
in Massachusetts and New York broke into open revolt against the 
tyranny of the king's representatives, imprisoning Governor Andros 




KING JAMliS II. 



82 



WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY 



in Massachusetts and frightening away the heutenant-governor 
Nicholson in New York. For, at that time, a revolution in England 
drove from the throne the despised King James (for whom, when 
he was Duke of York, the city and province of New York had been 
named) and so mixed up matters in the colonies that it was hard to 
tell just who had the right to act. Then the people resolved to act 
for themselves. In Massachusetts, after putting the Roj'al Governor, 
Andros, in prison, the people set up a government of their own. 
Connecticut saved her much-prized '' charter " from seizure by the 

king's men by blowing out the 
lights just as it was to be taken 
away, and hiding it in a tree ; 
that tree stood as an honored 
relic for nearly two hundred 
years afterward and was always 
knov/n as " the Charter Oak." In 
New York, the people, left with- 
out a governor, proclaimed their 
right to rule themselves and ap- 
pointed a patriotic citizen, named 
Jacob Leisler, to act as temporary governor. One of the earliest of 
American patriots, Jacob Leisler ruled w4th vigor as the " people's 
governor." He summoned a popular convention, arranged the first 
mayoralty election by the people, made the first step toward union 
by attempting a continental congress, and tried to make a bold 
strike at the power of France by an invasion of Canada. But he 
was disliked by the few " aristocratic " leaders of New York affairs, 
because he would not do as they wished but preferred to act for the 
whole people ; they combined against him, and when the new gov- 
ernor appointed by the king arrived Leisler was arrested, impris- 
oned and hanged for treason — '-the first martyr of American 
independence." 

After this, things went " from bad to worse," so far as the relations 




IN LKISLEK S TIMES. 



WORKING TOWARD LIBERTY. 



83 



between the people and the royal governors were concerned. There 
were grumblings in every colony ; there were open outbreaks in 
some, and active opposition in all. The governors themselves had 
anything but a pleasant time. As the years went on the colonists 
grew more and more emphatic in their demand for personal liberty. 




THE PEOPLE AND THE ROYAL GOVERNOR. 



They saAV that the land they lived in was destined to increase in 
importance, population and riches, but they knew that unless they 
had their " say " this growth woidd be slow or Avithout direct benefit 
to them. Their English rulers granted them few rights and looked 
down upon them as if they were inferiors. The Americans were 



84 « THE LAST S TRA W." 

not allowed to manufacture anything for their own use or for sale 
in England ; the farmers were compelled to send their crops to Eng- 
land and purchase what they needed in English markets only. 

It is no wonder then that the people grew restless, that they 
began to think and talk and act, and that at last they came to the 
conclusion that if the King of England denied them the right of liv- 
ing honest, honorable, hard-working and upright lives as loyal colo- 
nists of England in the land they had settled and cultivated, it was 
high time for them to deny the right of the King of England to 
have anything whatever to say as to their affairs. 

Just then the King of England of that day (whose name and title 
were George the Third, and who was a particularly obstinate and 
unaccommodating ruler) gave his consent to certain measures that 
roused the people of the thirteen colonies to the greatest indignation ; 
they led to results, too, that were as unforeseen to the Americans 
as they were surprising to the pig-headed King George of England, 
three thousand iniles awav. 



CHAPTER X. 

" THE LAST STRAW." 

A.TIONS as well as boys and men are often all too ready to 
play the biilly. In 1760 the population of Great Britain 
was fully nine millions ; the population of Great Britain's 
thirteen colonies in America was less than two millions. 
It is very easy for nine millions to say to two millions, 
'' You shall ! " or " You shall not ! " And they did say it. People 
in England talked of the people in America as " our subjects." Of 
course the Americans did not like this ; they felt that they were 




''THE LAST straw: 



85 




A SMUGGLER 



quite as good and certainly as wide awake as their relatives across 

the sea. And they said so, too. 

Then the merchants of England felt that they owned 
the colonies. The people of America, as we have seen, 
could neither buy nor sell except through English 
traders ; they could neither receive nor send away goods 
except in English vessels ; and the right of trade which 
had been allowed them with certain French and Spanish 
colonies in and about the West India Islands was threat- 
ened with withdrawal. The English manufacturers and 
traders held, in fact, what we call in these days a monop- 
oly of the American trade, and, caring only for what 

money they could make, were unwilling to allow the colonists any 

chance whatever for profit or trade. 

This selfish spirit naturally made the Americans very angry. As 

a result certain of the colonists said that if England would not allow 

them to trade where they pleased they would do it on the sly — even 

though it was against the law. This 

was called smuggling, and England tried 

to punish the sailors and merchants who 

brought into America, unlawfully, the 

goods they had purchased from people 

with whom they were not allowed to 

trade. But America's coast-line was full 

of little creeks and bays into which 

the smugglers could sail without being 

caught and this '' illicit trade," as it was 

called, rapidly increased and became very 

profitable. 

In 1759 the long struggle between 

France and England in America was 

brought to an end by the defeat of the French general Mont- 
calm on the Plains of Abraham, and the surrender of Quebec in 




GUARDING THE PORT. 



86 



''THE LAST straw:' 



Canada. The cost of this long-continued strife was frightful. Eng- 
lish tax-payers held that as these wars had been for the defense and 
benefit of the American colonies, America should pay the bill — or 
at least a certain proportion of it — and also the cost of governing 
and defending the colonies in the future. But the Americans did 
not think this was just. The wars with France, they said, had been 
for the benefit and glory of England. The American colonies were 

not allowed the right to choose or have any 
one to speak for them in the English Par- 
liament, saj'ing Avho should govern them or 
how they should be governed. " If we can 
be represented in the English Parliament." 
they said, " we are willing to be taxed for 
our support, but we do not propose to pay 
for what we do not get." 

The British lawmakers, however, were de- 
termined. They would not yield to the 
desires of the colonists ; they made new 
rules as to the commerce and shipping of 
the colonies that were harsher than the 
former ones ; these were called the Naviga- 
tion Acts. Then they ordered that the Cus- 
tom House officers in America should have 
the right to enter any house at any time 
to search for smuggled goods, and, if need be, to call upon the 
soldiers for help. This order was called the Writ of Assistance. 

Then how angry the colonists were ! For they were English- 
men in nature and ancestry and they held to the truth of the old 
English declaration, that an Englishman's house is his castle,* 
into which no one but himself or his family has the right to 
enter uninvited. 




THK KIGIIT OV SEAHCll. 



* This was the decision of a famous English justice, Sir Eihvard Coke, wlio, in 1660, said : " The house of every 
one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defense against injury and violence as for his repose." 



''THE LAST straw: 



87 



So when the EngHsh authorities attempted to enforce these Writs 
of Assistance there was a great uproar ! The colonists had grumbled 
and protested at the other burdens laid upon them, but for the Eng- 
lish king to claim the right of invading the home was going too far. 
They resisted the Writ ; and James Otis, a brilliant Boston lawyer 
whose duty it was as one of the lawyers for the Government to de- 
fend the service of one of these writs, resigned his office and spoke 
in bold and fiery words against the new injustice. "To my dying 
day," he declared in this memorable speech, " will I oppose, with all 
the power and faculties God has given me, all such instruments 
of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other." It was 
the first outspoken word for liberty, and roused the people to 
enthusiasm. 

And yet, angered though they were at England's tyranny, the 
colonists hesitated to act. England was the mother country and 
resistance was rebellion. They were not yet ready to go so far. 
They felt that all they should do was — as 
the old saying runs — to " grin and bear 
it." But they really could not "grin" over 
tyranny and they soon determined not to 
bear it. 

For, one day came the climax. It is the 
last straw in the overburdening load, you 
know, that breaks the camel's back. And 
in the year 1765, on the eighth of March, King George and his 
councilors tried to put the last straw on the overloaded back of 
the colonial camel. On that day the English Parliament passed 
the measure now famous in history as the Stamp Act. 

This celebrated act was but one amono; a number of measures 
adopted by Parliament for taxing the American colonies, but it was 
particularly objectionable. It required that all newspapers, almanacs, 
marriage certificates, pamphlets and legal documents of every 
description should be upon stamped paper or have pasted upon them 




THE HATED STAMPS. 



88 ''THE LAST STEAW.'' 

stamps furnished by the English Government and purchased from 
the agents appointed to sell them in the colonies. It was consid- 
ered as the " entering wedge " for other tj^rannical acts. " If the 
king can tax our trade," the colonists said, "why not our lands?" 
And from Maine to Georgia the cry arose, " No taxation without 
representation." People do not object to pay taxes when they 
themselves order the taxes and are benefited b}' the money that 
comes from such taxation ; but to be taxed without a word to say in 
the matter and to be forced to pay, no matter how objectionable the 
method and manner of collection, makes people angry. And so the 
people of America broke out into loud and rebellious words. James 
Otis in Massachusetts and Patrick Henry in Virginia, and other 
speakers of prominence and influence aroused their hearers to a 
■ pitch of enthusiasm ; local rivalries were forgotten in the general 
indignation ; the demand for a union of the colonies in opposition 
to the tyrann}^ of England was universal ; acts of violence and 
insubordination against the stamp agents and the English gover- 
nors and officials were committed in every colony; patriotic asso- 
ciations called the " Sons of Liberty " were formed ; and on tha 
seventh of October, 1765, a Colonial Congress, consisting of dele- 
gates from nine of the thirteen colonies, assembled at New York 
and adopted three protests against taxation — one of these they 
called a " Declaration of Rights," one " An address to the King," 
and one a " Memorial to Parliament." 

This wide-spread opposition on the part of the colonies, the 
refusal of the Americans to buy or to use the stamps, their agree- 
ment with one another not to import, buy, use or wear any article 
of English manufacture until the Stamp Act was " repealed " — that 
is, declared by the English Parliament to be no longer in force — 
exerted so great an influence in England, especially upon the mer- 
chants who saw that this stand of the Americans would cause them 
to lose both trade and money, that in 1766 after much debate and 
many bitter words, the English Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. 



''"TEE LAST STIiAW." 



89 



The result was received by the colonists with the greatest joy; 
but when they learned that, in place of the Stamp Act other meas- 
ures had been adopted for raising money from the colonies by 
taxation, without granting them representation or securing their 




I'UEPAKING I'OK " IKJMESl'UN " CLOTHES. 



consent, the people again protested. Thereupon the English 
government sent soldiers across the sea to see that the tax laws 
were enforced and ordered that the people sho*uld pay for the board 



90 



« THE LAST STRAW.'' 



and lodging of the soldiers who were sent over to force them into 
submission. 

This was too much. New York refused to provide for the soldiers 
sent to that province and Parliament, as a punishment, took awa}' 
the colony's right to hold its own legislature. Massachusetts 
urged the colonies to call another congress for self-preservation and 
Parliament ordered Massachusetts to recall its action. When the 




UNWELCOME LODGERS. 



colony refused its legislature was dissolved and four regiments of 
soldiers were sent to Boston to keep the town in order. 

This was in 1768. From this time on things grew worse and 
worse. The people hated the soldiers as the representatives of 
England's tyranny. The soldiers already treated the people as 
rebels. From words they came to blows. On the eighteenth of 



''THE LAST STIiAWr' 91 

January, 1770, the citizens of New York made the first stand against 
the king's troops in a street fight known as the " Battle of Golden 
Hill " and on the fifth of March, in the same year, an unexpected 
fight in King Street, Boston, developed into the bloody brawl that 
has since been called " the Boston Massacre." 

Everybody was aroused. It looked very much as if war was at 
hand. But Parliament, fearing that it had perhaps gone too far, 
took off all the taxes save one — that on tea. 

But this was adding insult to injury. The American colonies 
were not making their firm stand to save money but to gain their 
rights. It did not matter what was taxed or how much it was taxed. 
What they resisted was any tax without the right of representation. 
They refused to buy tea. They refused even to drink it ; they 
drank, instead, tea made from sage or raspberry-leaves, or other 
American plants. New York and Philadelphia sent back the tea- 
ships unloaded. Charleston stored the tea in damp cellars and 
spoiled it. In Boston the British men-of-war blocked the way and 
refused to let the tea-ships out of the harbor. A great public meet- 
ing in the Old South Church requested the Governor to let the tea- 
ships go back and, when he refused, fifty men disguised as Indians 
rushed to Griffin's Wharf, boarded the tea-ships and smashed and 
flung overboard three hundred and forty-two chests of tea. This 
occurred on the night of the sixteenth of December, 1773, and has 
ever since been known as the " Boston Tea Party." 

Enraged at this open defiance Parliament ordered the port of 
Boston closed — that is, said that no ships could go in or out — and 
the business of the town was well-nigh ruined. This was called the 
Boston Port Bill. The other colonies stood up for Boston ; they 
sent it aid and supplies and cheering words and, one after another, 
the thirteen colonies agreed to neither buy nor sell to England (to 
'• boycott " it, in fact, as we say to-day) and to join in a general 
con(*;ress. 

This congress of the thirteen colonies — since known as the First 



92 



"-THE LAST STRAW.'' 



Continental Congress — assembled at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelpliia 
on the fifth of September, 1774, and petitioned the king and Parlia- 
ment of England to restore the rights the}^ had ^vithdrawn. But it 
was of no use. King and parliament were stubborn. 

The war is inevital)le. and let it come ! I repeat it, sir. let it 




A WEAK-KXKKn I'ATIUOT AM) IIKK bl-V CI V i>l i\.\. 



come ! " cried Patrick Henrv in Virginia in that famous speech which 
every American lioy, and, I hope, every American girl knows hy 
heart. The ^^ar was inevitable. It had come at last. 



THE FIlllST BLOW FOR FREEDOM, 



93 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 



l^^m^. 







EBELLION is the open or armed resistance to lawful au- 
thority. When that resistance is successful it is Revolu- 
tion. You see, now, why we call our war for independence 
the American Revolution. It was a successful rebellion 
against English authority, and completely changed — or 
the government of the people of America. 



" revolutionized" 

There were many dark and bitter days before the rebellion became 
a revolution, but the story of the struggle is full of interest. You 
have already seen how the trouble grew, as, passing from objection 
to protest and from protest to insubordination, it developed at last 
into open defiance, resistance and war. 

When Samuel Adams of Boston (the " prophet of independence " 
as he has been called) declared in the Old South 
Church " this meeting can do nothing more to save 
the country " and cheered on the make-believe In- 
dians to the " Boston Tea Party," the American 
Revolution began. From Maine to Georgia people 
began to talk of war, and when the English Par- 
liament rejected the proposals of the Continental 
Congress of 1774, the spirit of rebellion was ready 
to burst into a flame. 

It takes but a spark to set the tinder ablaze, and 
the spark came at last. The cabinet of King 
George declared as "traitors and rebels" all who 
were disloyal to the king; war-ships and soldiers were dispatched 
to Boston which was declared to be " the hot bed of rebellion ; " 




8AML"1:L AD.V-Mi. 



94 



THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 




—^/-^K^- 



^M 



and the Royal Governor, General Gage, was ordered to seize or 
destroy all munitions of war held by the colonists and to fire upon 
the people should he deem it necessary. 

Acting under these orders General Gage seized the arms and 
powder stored in the old powder house on Quarry Hill (in the pres- 
ent city of Somerville) three miles 
--^___— - — /, from Boston and took secret meas- 

ures to seize the stores at Salem and 
at Concord. 

Now as these stores and munitions 
of war were the property of the 
province of Massachusetts, it was held 
that the king had no right to take 
them and after the seizure at Somer- 
ville the provincial congress — as the 
" rebel " legislature of the province 
called itself — determined to save 
these stores for its own need. A 
mob of indignant patriots frightened 
away the small force sent to Salem 
and some one* told the Americans of the secret designs upon the 
stores at Concord and the two signal lanterns hung in the belfry 
of the Old North Church of Boston gave warning of the plans of 
the British. 

Then it was that Paul Revere made his famous night ride from 
Boston to Concord to arouse the farmers against the British designs. 
Of course you all know Mr. Longfellow's splendid poem " Paul 
Revere's Ride," telling how this brave " scout of liberty " spread 
the news. Just read it again, right here, to refresh your memory 
and then you will understand how excited the people were and how 
the " minute men " from all the country round caught up their 




PAUL KFA'ERE S KIDK 



* It is said tliat ihis " some one " was no less a person than Mrs. Gage, tlie wife of the Royal Governor. She 
was an Ainorican woman and said to be " friendly to liberty." 



THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 



95 



arms and hurried to the highway that led from Boston to Concord. 
These " minute men " were colonial militia men pledged to be in 
readiness for any call to arms, and prepared to march Avhen the 
warning came — "at a minute's notice." They came; and on Lex- 
ington Common and by the North Bridge at Concord they struck 
the first blow for liberty. 

" You know the rest. In the books you have read 
How the British Regulars tired and fled ; 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load." 



Eight hundred "red-coats," as the British soldiers were called, 
inarched from Boston on the eighteenth of April, 1775. When 
they reached Lexington Common half an hour before sunrise on the 
nineteenth of April between sixty and seventy minute men were 
drawn up "just north of the meeting-house" to 
resist their advance. 

" Disperse, ye villains ! ye rebels, disperse ! lay 
down your arms! Why don't you lay down your 
arms and disperse ? " called out Major Pitcairn, the 
leader of the British advance. 

The minute men of Lexington were sixty against 
eight hundred. But they were not there to disperse. " Too few 
to resist, too brave to fly," as Mr. Bancroft says of them, they 
simply stood their ground. 

" Fire ! " shouted Pitcairn, and under the deadly discharge of 
British muskets seven of the " rebels " fell dead and nine were 
wounded. Then the British marched on to Concord. 

But their leader Colonel Smith saw that the country was roused 
and that he should have to fight his way back. He sent at once to 




96 



THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 



Boston for reinforcements and nearly two thirds of all the " red- 
coats " in the town were hurried off to the help of their comrades. 
Meanwhile these comrades had marched on to Concord. There 
they found but few of the " stores" they had been sent to destroy. 
Two cannons were spiked in the tavern yard ; sixty barrels of flour 
were broken in pieces ; five hundred pounds of ball were thrown 
into the mill pond ;• the liberty pole was cut down and some private 
houses were broken into. That was all. A hundred or more sol- 
diers were sent to guard the North Bridge across the Concord River 
and, while there, the minute men of Acton, led on by the school- 
master, marched down the hill to 
the bridge. The British soldiers, 
seeing the colonists coming on, be- 
gan to tear up the planks of the 
bridge ; the Americans broke into 
a run ; the British fired and the 
schoolmaster fell dead. Then 
Major Buttrick of Concord cried 
out, " Fire, fellow soldiers ! " and 
" Fire, fire, fire ! " echoed his men. 
They fired ; two of the British fell ; 
the rest turning ran toward the 
main body of the "invaders" and 
the minute men held the brido-e. 

o 

That was the battle of Concord ! 
For the first time the lons'-suffer- 
ing American colonists had turned upon their tormentors and there, 
by the flowing Concord River, as Mr. Emerson says, they 




thp: biudge at coxcoud. 



Fired the shot heard round the workl." 



Colonel Smith and his eight hundred red-coats turned toward 
home. From every point the minute men hurried to the higliwa:y 



THE FIRST BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 



99 




IT RAINED UKBELS." 



to " chase them back." At Lexington, nearly worn out, they met 
Lord Percy's reinforcement, twelve hundred strong. He and his 
men had marched from Boston to the tune of " Yankee Doodle " in 
contempt of the colonists. But they soon " changed their tune," 
and when they turned for home 
the march back to Boston was but 
a sorry race for life. 

The whole country round was 
now fully roused. Minute men 
came from every direction. Lin- 
ing the highway they fired " from 
fence and farm-yard wall," while 
the very clouds, so the bewildered 
British declared, " seemed to rain 
rebels." Back hurried the red- 
coats defeated, dispirited, beset. 
Like bull-dogs the aroused farmers 
with flint-lock musket and old "king's arm" followed up the re- 
treat, barking and biting to the last, until, just after sunset, the 
straggling red-coats escaped across Charlestown Neck and were safe 
beneath the protecting batteries of Boston town. 

It had been a dreadful day for them. Two hundred and seventy- 
three men were either killed, wounded or missing ; of the Ameri- 
cans eighty-eight had been killed or wounded. But, greater than 
the loss in men had been the fatal mistake of the troops of the king. 
The war had come at last ; they were the aggressors ; they, too, 
had been the chief sufferers. All hope of avoiding a bloody quar- 
rel was now past. The news of the "Battle of Lexington," as it 
has ever since been called, spread like a prairie fire. From all 
New England militia and minute men hastened to the aid of their 
countrymen. The people rose in war, and before the first of May, 
1775, the king's soldiers were securely shut up in Boston by an 
army of nearly twenty thousand " rebels." 



100 THE AMEIUCAX REVOLUTION. 

The fivst blow for liberty had been a decisive one. " We determine 
to die or be free," the Massachusetts Congress wrote, after the day 
of Lexington, to the people of England. And when swift riders 
carried the news of the fight north, west and south, the patriot col- 
onists from the Green Mountains to the Carolina rivers and the 
Kentuck}' borders sprang to arms and echoed the stern words of 
Massachusetts : " We determine to die or be free." 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIOX. 




" HE colonists could now take no backward step. And there 
seemed to be no desire to. They were in earnest and they 
acted as if they were. The news of the fight at Concord 
and Lexington roused the patriots in other parts of the 
land. People began to talk of separation from England ; 
they began to plan for independence. 

And yet the leaders moved cautiously. They did not know their 
own strength ; they only knew that the people seemed determined 
not to be bullied by England. So they summoned another Congress 
to determine on peace or war. 

It would be an unequal contest. On one side was England with all 
the power and all the advantage of a trained and unconquered 
army ; on the other was a handful of feeble settlements, without 
army, money, standing or preparation for war, strung along an un- 
defended stretch of broken coast line, the deep sea to the east and 
to the west only the trackless forests and hordes of hostile Indians. 
But men will dare to do much in defense of their rights. Lex- 
ington strengthened their arm. Following fast upon the battle of 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 



101 



Lexington came the bold move by which on the tenth of May, 1775, 
Ethan Allen and his one hundred Green Mountain Boys captured 
the British post of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, demand- 
ing; the surrender of the fortress '• in the name of the Great Jehovah 
and the Continental Congress ; " and from that day the war fever 
grew greatly. 

Around the beleaguered British in Boston lay the patriot army, 
really without a leader, but determined to hold the regulars at bay 
or drive them into the sea. Reinforce- 
ments came to the awny of the king and 
now, twelve thousand strong, its officers 
and sympathizers (called '• tories ") de- 
clared that the rebels were but a pack of 
blusterers and would not fight. 

Would they not? This question was 
speedily answered. On the morning of 
the seventeenth of June, 1775, the British 
generals finding that the '' Yankee 
Doodles " were fortifying one of the 
Charlestown hills, sent three thousand 
red-coats across the Mystic with orders 
to drive off the rebels. They did, but at 
what a cost. Three times they charged 
up the hill to where Colonel Prescott 
and his thousand men awaited the attack. 
Twice were they sent reeling down the slope, baffled by the deadly 
fire of the Americans. With the third volley the ammunition of 
the Americans gave out and the British troops finally carried the 
hill after a stubborn hand-to-hand fight. The Battle of Bunker 
Hill was won. But ten hundred and fifty-four in killed and 
wounded Avas the cost to the British of that doubtful victory, and it 
proved to all the world that the Americans would fight. From that 
day the British troops never cared to storm a '• rebel " earthwork. 




6 ^%^!ri^-o^%^ 



10'2 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

All that the Americans now needed was a leader. And he w^as 
speedily forthcoming. The North had opened the Revolution ; the 
South should give it a leader. On the very day of the Battle of 
Bunker Hill — the seventeenth of June, 1775 — the Second Conti- 




"THK IJKBKLS AKE I'ORTIKYING BUNKKR HILL." 

nental Congress, in session at Philadelphia, voted to raise and equip 
an army of twent}^ thousand men, and elected Colonel George 
Washington of Virginia as " generalissimo " or commander-in-chief. 
In all the land no better choice could have been found. George 
Washington had been trained from early youth to leadership and 
direction. He was as strong of character as he was noble of soul ; 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 103 

he was patient, persistent, fair-minded, generous and brave ; his 
strength of will was inspiring, his power of self-control remarkable, 
and he was absolutely truthful. He was a natural leader. As a 
boy he was captain of the company of small Virginians he drilled 
and marshaled. At sixteen he was a surveyor and " roughed it " 
in the Indian country ; at twenty he was a major in the king's ser- 
vice ; at twenty-five he was commander-in-chief of the Virginia 
forces. It was he who fired the first shot in the French wars of 
1754, led the attack at Great Meadows, and by his valor, alone, 
saved the terrible defeat of the English general Braddock from be- 
coming a massacre. He knew the weakness as well as the strength, 
the endurance as well as the independence of the colonial soldier, 
and no man was better suited to lead the troops of revolution to 
victory, to guide them in skillful retreat or to save them from the 
disgrace of surrender. Other generals in the Revolutionary army 
were as brave, others as self-sacrificing, others as skillful as he, but 
not one combined all the excellencies that go toward making a 
great soldier except George Washington. His record as a leader 
alike in victory and defeat, was such that students of the art of war 
accord to General Washington the rank of a " great commander." 

On the third of July, 1775, Washington assumed command of the 
American army drawn up to receive him on the Commons of Cam- 
bridge, and his headquarters were in the old Craigie House, still 
standing, and equally cherished by all Americans as the military 
home of Washington the soldier, and the peaceful home of Long- 
fellow the poet. He declined to receive any pay for his services, 
went at once to work to organize his army of fourteen thousand un- 
disciplined militia men and kept General Gage and his red-coats so 
tightly locked up in Boston town, that they were at last forced to 
run away from the city by sea. This they did on the seventeenth 
of March, 1776. Washington and the victorious Continental troops 
marched into the city and Boston's long slavery was over. 

On the first of January, 1776, the new flag of the Revolution was 



104 THE AMEraCAX REVOLUTION. 

raised over the American camp on Prospect Hill ; and on the fourth 
of July? 1776, the Continental Congress assembled in Independence 
Hall in the cit}' of Philadelphia declared the thirteen United Col- 
onies to be " free and independent States " — that they were " ab- 
solved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all politi- 
cal connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and 
ought to be totally dissolved." This was the immortal " Declaration 
of Independence," and ever since that memorable act the fourth of 
July has been celebrated as the birthday of the United States of 
America. 

But to declare a thing is not always to do it. The Declaration 
was but the first stejD toward independence. Much was to be at- 
tempted, much suffered, much lost and won before the United States 
were really free and independent. For nearly seven years, from the 
nineteenth of April, 1775, to the nineteenth of October, 1781 — 
from the first blood at Lexins-ton to the last blood at Yorktown — 
did the unequal conflict rage before the King of England, his coun- 
cilors and his people would acknowledge themselves beaten by 
the spirit of liberty that had grown up across the sea. Then at last 
they reluctantly gave in. A treaty of peace with the new " nation " 
was signed at Paris on the third of September, 1783, and on the 
tAventy-fifth of November following, the British soldiers evacuated 
the city of New York and Liberty triumphed. 

It had been a stubborn fight between determined men. When 
once the war was really entered upon and the evacuation of Boston 
showed the King of England and his advisers that it was to be 
fought in earnest, the British leaders sought by every means to 
secure success. They sent large armies to America, swelling their 
ranks by hiring for money thousands of European troops called 
Hessians; they tried in every way to frighten and overawe the 
steadfast " rebels," and gave honors and reward to those Americans 
who remained lo^^al to the king and who were called " tories." 
They sought to occupy the chief centers of population North and 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 



105 



South nnd to achieve the conquest of the country from these points 
But all to no purpose. With . less number of troops, poorly Led 
poorly fed and scantily clothed, and with all the chances of war 




GENEUAi GEOIJGE MASHINGTOX. 



against him, General Washington so planned and fought that, inch 

red Zt' .?" *u' '"'P"*"'' '"'•"*'"-y f™" *e over-confident 
red-coats, and brought victory at last to the Continental forces 



106 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 



After its beginning at Boston, the Revolutionary War may be di- 
vided into three periods of fighting : the struggle for the Hudson, 
the struggle for the Delaware and the struggle for the 
Carolinas. 

Defeated at the Battle of Long Island, Washing- 
ton retreated through New Jersey and won the battle 
of Trenton ; defeated at Germantown he retreated 
into the gloom of that sorry winter of Valley Forge, 
coming out in the spring to fight and win the Battle 
of Monmouth. He drove the British from Boston ; he 
forced them from Philadelphia ; his planning relieved 
Charleston and the Carolinas, and finally brought 
about the British surrender at Yorktown. It was 
Washington's persistent refusal to stay beaten but to 
come up again and again to what seemed a useless 
fight that drew to "his side the gallant young French- 
man the Marquis de Lafayette, and won for the new 
United States the alliance and aid of France. On the 
thirteenth of January, 1778, a treaty of alliance with 
France was signed, and from that date the success 
of the revolt was never doubtful. 

The dark days of the war were the defeats at Quebec, where the 
gallant Montgomery was slain while storming the British citadel ; 
at Long Island and White Plains, where the raw troops 
of Washington were no match for the British regu- 
lars ; at Brandywine and Germantown which lost 
Philadelphia to the Americans ; and at Charleston 
and Camden which for a time " wiped out " the south- 
ern army of the patriots. Darker still were the 
dreary days at Valley Forge when all seemed lost 
indeed ; the hateful treason of Benedict Arnold, one 
of Washington's trusted generals, and the days, when by the sel- 
fish combination of enemies in the army and in the Congress (in 




'COXTIXICNTAL. 




THE A31ERICAN REVOLUTION. 



107 



what is known as "the Conway Cabal"), General Washington 
was very nearly forced from his position as commander of the 
American army. 

But the bright days are what we most thankfully remember; 
they were what gave strength to American endeavor and made for 
the cause of liberty friends across the sea. As Lexington and Con- 
cord and Bunker Hill are names to be forever cherished so, too, are 
the names of Trenton where through icy perils the patriots pushed 
on to victory ; of Princeton which saved New Jersey ; of Saratoga 
which saw the surrender of the pompous and boast- 
ful British general Burgoyne who had declared that 
with ten thousand men he would "promenade 
through America ; " of Stony Point where, borne 
on the shoulders of his men, the wounded leader, 
dear to all Americans as "Mad Anthony Wayne," 
charged into the British fort and won it at the point 
of the bayonet; of Fort Sullivan in Charleston Har- 
bor where the brave General Moultrie " held the 
fort," and Sergeant Jasper, in the face of the enemy, 
rescued the fallen flag and hoisted it again over the 
battered ramparts ; and, last of all, of Yorktown 
where on the nineteenth of October, 1781, Cornwallis and the 
British army surrendered as prisoners of war to Washington the 
American and the Frenchman Rochambeau. 

And in this record of the fight for liberty we must not forget the 
struggle on the sea. The American colonies had no navy, but they 
had many plucky sailors and men who loved salt water. Early in 
the struggle privateers were sent out — that is, small vessels fitted 
out by private persons but authorized by the Congress to annoy 
and capture British ships and supplies. Soon the privateers were 
followed by men-of-war and the names of Captains Biddle and 
Manly, Mugford and Read, Weeks and Convngham and Whipple 
we worthy to stand in memory beside the heroes of Lexington and 




ANTHOXA' WAYWE. 



108 



THE AMERICAN REVOLLTION. 



Bunker Hill, of Stony Point and Valley Forge. But, chief of all 
the Revolutionary sea-fighters, is John Paul Jones, the captain of 
the Bonhomme Richard and conqueror of the British man-of-war 
Serapis. Lashed to_gether, the two ships waged a fearful struggle 
for hours ; when the British captain thought the " Yankee pirate " 
was conquered he shouted across to him : " The 
Richard ahoy ! Have you struck your colors ? " and 
back came the valiant answer of the plucky " Yankee 
pirate," "I have not yet begun to fight." Then 
he really did begin and did not stop until the Serapis 
struck her colors. 

The American Revolution was a stubborn and 
gallant fight against tyranny ; it was the answer 
of those who would be free men to those who souo'ht 
to keep them slaves. From it we may all, young and 
old alike, learn why we should persevere if we feel 
that we are right even when the times seem darkest 
and things are going wrong ; and, more than all, by it we are 
taught that whatever is worth having is worth striving for. 
Liberty could not have come to America without the struggle and 
blood of our forefathers ; and their endeavors and their sacrifices 
preached the noblest of sermons and showed to a watching world 
the real worth of liberty. 




JOHN I'AUL JONES. 




""■:? , --i 



THE MEN OF THE ME VOLITION, 



109 



CHAPTER XIIL 



THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 




HEN you watch a base-ball game what is it that interes':^ 
you most through it all — the j)layers or the result of their 
play ? Do you not soon forget this or that boy in whose 
good work you place so much confidence and think more 
of the score that is being made or wonder whether the great 
playing of your favorite nine is really going to give them the vic- 
tory ? It is- so in life. Acts are more than actors ; principles are 
more then men. What a city, a State or a nation is striving for. is 
of more importance than the leaders in the struggle or the great 
men whose names we reverence and applaud. 

And yet we are all hero-worshipers and love to linger 
over the names and deeds of those who have contrib- 
uted to the success of great principles, the results of 
noble deeds. For this reason it is well for us, at this 
point, to look over the years of struggle that led the 
thirteen English Colonies of North America " through 
night to light " and laid the foundation of the United 
States of America. 

They were of three classes : the agitators, the organ- 
izers, the fighters. The agitators, or those who pre- 
pared the minds of the people for the struggle, began 
their work years and years before Lexington or the 
Declaration of Independence were thoaght of. These 
were the men who saw that kingly power and the peo- 
ple's will would not work together and who resisted, by word or 
deed, the attempts of king or governor to cut away the rights of the 




French's statue of 
the minute man. 



110 



THE 3IEX OF THE REVOLUTIOX. 



people. Such men were Xatlianiel Bacon, and John Culpepper and 
Jacob Leisler, whose " rebellions" have been referred to m earlier 
chapters; such, too, were John Wise, the minister of Ipswich in 
Massachusetts who, a hundred years before the Revolution, boldly 
preached against " taxation without representation " ; and Peter 
Zenger, the New York printer, Avho in his newspaper, in 1733. 
boldly stood out against king and governor ; and Andrew Hamilton, 
the Philadelphia lawyer who, defending Zenger, spoke so eloquently 

for what we now call '' the liberty of the 
press," that the printer was acquitted and 
the governor dared not again accuse him. 
These are but a few among the "fore- 
runners of freedom " whose names should 
be held in remembrance ; to them, and to 
others like them who left their mark upon 
our colonial history, was due much of that 
manly and outspoken desire to be self- 
supporting that led to the later struggle 
for independence — a desire founded upon 
that noble utterance Avhich is believed to 
have been made by Dr. Benjamin Frank- 
lin : "^ Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to 
God." 

Of this remarkable man Americans have 
ever been proud. And well they may be. 
Benjamin Franklin vras a poor Boston boy, born in 170G, wbo 
educated himself, learned the printer's trade and, when seventeen 
years old, went to Philadelphia where he gradually rose to posi- 
tion, influence and fame. An editor, an author, a philosopher, 
an inventor, a statesman and a patriot, Franklin made the title of 
" an American " known and honored in Europe, and, by his wisdom, 
his eloquence and his influence, stood foremost among those great 
men of the Revolution to whom we irive the name of the orsran- 



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Vn. liENJAMIX FRANKLIN. 



THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. Ill 

izers. Largely through his exertions was the king of Enghmd 
brought to repeal the hated " Stamp Act ; " he Avas one of the com- 
mittee to draft the Declaration of Independence ; he was sent as 
Ambassador to France and gained the French aid that helped the 
Revolution to final success ; he was one of the makers of the treaty 
of j)eace with England and one of the framers of the Constitution 
of the United States. The young " tramp-printer," who in 1723 
entered Philadelphia, poor, friendless, hungry and hopeful, died in 
that city in 1790 at the age of eighty-four, its most honored citizen 
and the one American Avho, to-day, shares in all the world the glory 
and renown of Washington. 

Washington and Franklin have, indeed, been the two names that 
from the days of Revolution, have been associated as the greatest 
leaders in that historic struggle. But even Franklin's fame halts 
far beneath that of George Washington. In the minds of men as 
wen as of boys the successful fighter is a much greater hero than 
the agitator or the organizer. We like to see a man who never 
knows when he is whipped; who has what we call "grit;" who 
accepts defeat without a murmur, but rather as a spur to new 
effort. But Washino;ton had far more than this. He was as strono; 
of character as he was of arm ; as noble of soul as he was firm of 
purpose. His abilities as a soldier Avere equalled by his qualities as 
a statesman ; and from the day when, beneath the historic elm on 
Cambridge Common, he took command of the Continental army to 
the day when he rode into New York at the heels of the last depart- 
ing British regiment, he never faltered in his fidelity to the cause 
of freedom, or lost faith in its final and complete success. 

But though the names of Washino-ton and Franklin lead all others 
in the story of the Men of the Revolution there are those linked 
with them to whom equal honor and equal praise are due. On this 
roll we read the name of James Otis, who made the first eloquent 
appeal for liberty and was branded by the king's men as " the great 
incendiarv of New Eno-land ; " Samuel Adams — called " the last of 



112 



THE MEN OE THE REVOLUTION. 



the Puritans." — who, poor but incorruptible, "aimed steadily at 
the good of his country and the best interests of mankind " and did 
more than any one else to '' put the revolution in motion ; " Patrick 
Henry, the "man of the people," whose fiery eloquence and daunt- 
less courage roused Virginia to stand side by side with Massachusetts 




JOHN' ADAMS ri;i»iiiiv>ii; 



iiii. «,i.«.i;i>_«i .-< iuLiail."' 



in the struggle for freedom : " I know not what course others may 
take," he cried, " but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ; " 
John Adams, ^vise, far-seeing, statesmanlike, the inspirer of our 
"Fourth of July" celebrations, who, 3'ears before the Revolution, 

* "It will be rolebrated b)- sucrcoding geiiciatioub," said John Ad;uiis, " from one end of the continent to the 
other, as the great anniversary festival." 



THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 113 

believed in the great mission of America and in the early days 
of the struggle, replied to a friend who warned him against brav- 
ing the power of England : " swim or sink, live or die, survive 
or perish with my country is my unalterable determination ; " John 
Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, proscribed as a 
traitor by George the Third — dignified, impartial, quick in action, 
determined in purpose, who urged the peoj)le of Boston, " Not only 
pray, but act ; if necessary fight and even die for the prosperity 
of our Jerusalem," and who, when he put his bold signature to the 
Declaration of Independence, said, laughingly : " There ; John Bull 
can read my name without spectacles. Now let him double the 
price on my head, for this is my defiance ; " Christopher Gadsden, 
the boldest in denouncing British oppression, the first to speak for 
American independence, " whose unselfish love of country," says 
Mr. Bancroft, ''was a constant encouragement to his countrymen 
never to yield;" Thomas Jefferson, the greatest Democrat, the 
sworn foe to aristocracy and kingly power, the author of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and through that immortal paper, " the 
beginner of a new age of the world;" John Jay, a statesman and a 
patriot of elevated motives, and the purest character who, before 
the struggle begun, took a bold stand for America's rights and 
wrote in his address to the British people : " Know, then, that we 
consider ourselves, and do insist that we are and ought to be, 
as free as our fellow-subjects in Great Britain and that no power 
on earth has a right to take our property from us without our 
consent;" Roger Sherman, a farmer and a shoemaker, a jurist 
and a statesman, signer of the Declaration and "one of the great 
men of his time," who set the bells of New Haven a-ringing as 
he declared that " the parliament of Great Britain can rightfully 
make laws for America in no case whatever;" Robert Morris, the 
" moneyed man " and financier of the Revolution, who, in 1777, 
declared that Washington Avas " the greatest man on earth," and 
who, through faith in Washington's ability as well as in the cause 



lU 



THE MEN OF THE liEVOLUTION. 



of freedom, when hope was lowest and American credit was dead, 
pledged his own fortune and, on the promise of his own name, 
borrowed the money to carry on the war ; Richard Henrj^ Lee, 
who, quickly repenting his application for the post of collector 
under the hated Stamp Act, became instead that Act's most vehe- 
ment foeman, introduced into the Continental Congress the first reso- 
lution looking toward independence, and wrote in the address to 

the British people : " On the sword, 
therefore, we are compelled to 
rely for protection. Of this at 
least we are assured, that our 
struggle will be glorious, our suc- 
cess certain ; since even in death 
we shall find that freedom which 
in life you forbid us to enjoy ; " 
Henry Laurens, the incorruptible, 
in whose Charleston office boys 
were trained to habits of honesty, 
integrity and industry in business, 
and who, kept a strict prisoner in 
the Tower of London, resisted all 
attempts of the British govern- 
ment to shake his fortitude or 
purchase his patriotism ; and, not 
to extend the list, Peyton Ran- 
dolph, who, though attorney-general for the king, when he " saw 
the right," resigned his office and its rewards and stood out boldly 
for justice, for resistance and for independence. 

These were amons; the leaders in council and conorress. And in 
the field were others equally worthy remembrance — Joseph War- 
ren, "who fell at Bunker Hill," and who, though president of the 
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, refused the command of its 
army of minute men and continentals at that famous battle, pre- 




nil-. i^iiiERTY BELL. 
(aVoio In Independence Hall, Philadelphia.) 




IN MARION S CA:.11 . 

Francis Marion called by the baffled British the ' Swa^np Fox. 



THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 117 

ferring to serve as a volunteer and saying to one who warned him 
to be cautious : " I know that I may fall, but where is the man who 
does not think it glorious and delightful to die for his country ? " 
Richard Montgomery, the intrepid leader of a forlorn hope, but for 
whose death in the very front of his assaulting line, the " rebel de- 
feat " at Quebec might have proved an important victory ; Nathan 
Hale, the " martyr," young, brilliant, enthusiastic, who, condemned 
to die as a spy by his British captors, only regretted that he had 
but one life to lose for his country ; Alexander Hamilton, the boy 
captain, the friend and aide-de-camp of Washington, the fiery young 
advocate of liberty, who replied to the taunt of the tories that the 
colonists would soon quarrel and disagree : '' I please myself with 
the flattering prospect that they will, ere long, unite in one indis- 
soluble chain ; " Nathaniel Greene, " the victorious," who saved the 
South by his able generalship and crippled his own estate to feed 
and clothe his soldiers ; Francis Marion, the borderer, called by the 
baffled British " the Swamp Fox," whose name is revered by all 
Americans as that of " one of the purest men, the truest patriot, 
and the most adroit general that American history can boast ; " 
Philip Schuyler, the general who could be true even under unjust 
suspicion, the real conqueror of Burgoyne, the unselfish soldier of 
whom Daniel Webster declared that he stood scarcely below Wash- 
ington in the services he rendered his country. 

But where can we stop ? The list of American heroes in camp 
and council is long enough to fill a volume, while those who fought 
in the ranks and those who suffered for the cause at home — un- 
known heroes whose glorious deeds have never been recorded — 
couid their names but be collected, would make a roll of heroism, 
limited only by the number of American patriots. For all were 
heroes then. Thouo-h some at times were timid and some at times 
lost faith ; though traitors like Benedict Arnold and jealous self- 
seekers like Charles Lee well-nio-h wrecked the cause of libertv and 
made the heart of its great leader to bleed and smart; though sec- 



118 



THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 



tions at times were "mad" with sections and men "put out" with 
men, so that the progress of revolution was ahnost stopped by jeal- 
ousies and disputes ; though money ran low and credit gave out and 
suffering and privation led to weakness and to loss ; though defeat 
dulled the zeal of patriots and the cruelties of war tried the courage 
of the bravest; yet still, through it all, the spirit of persevering 




mm: IJDMON I'.DVS AND (iKNEUAL (iAlJi;. 



patriotism swayed alike the men and the women, the bo^'s and the 
girls of the Revolution. The indignation that led the Boston boys 
to protest to General Gage against the petty tyranny of his soldiers 
who had trampled down their cherished " slides " was the same 
spirit that animated their fathers to fight against British tyranny 
even to the bitter end and that brought in at last that success that 



STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 119 

SO many had prayed for, so many had worked for, so many had 
fought for, through seven long years of struggle and disaster, of 
defeat and loss, of hope and faith and a glorious persistence. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 



-iBT- A-yHEN any prize is won, when any desired end is reached, 
^Jk^k/ when any thing that one has hoped, or worked, or fought 
^\W>" for is at last obtained, the world, looking on, asks concern- 
ing him who has secured the prize: "What will he do 
with it ?" From the boy in FrankUn's wise old story who 
"paid too dear for his whistle " to the young man who has reached 
his " freedom," the girl who has received hsr diploma, the man or 
woman who has attained fame or wealth or position — the same 
question applies to all : " What will he do with it ? " 

The thirteen revolted colonies, assuming the sounding title of 
"The United States of America" had won independence. What 
would they do with it? There were plenty to ask the question. 
The world looked on to scorn, to criticise, to sneer; for liberty was 
not yet accepted as the birthright of every man, and king-cursed 
Europe had but little faith in the success of the republic-experiment 
across the western sea. 

And, in fact, many in the newly-delivered land itself doubted and 
hesitated, beset with gloomy fears. There was talk of giving up 
the idea of a republic and establishing a monarchy ; there was even 
a foolish movement started (at Avhich none Avas angrier than the 
great patriot himself) to proclaim Washington as king and for a 



l:iO 



STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 



time people were '' all at sea " just what to do with the liberty they 
had secured. 

During the Revolution the colonies — or States as they were now 
called — had been held together in some sort of government by the 
Continental Congress and the paper its members had drawn up, 
called the " Articles of Confederation." But this was really ac- 




THREATS OF RESISTANCE TO TAWTIOX. 



cepted as a government only because of the desperate needs of war. 
The Continental Congress merely governed by general consent ; it 
had no authority to govern. It agreed, in 1778, upon certain rights 
and powers which were called the "Articles of Confederation" 
and which stated that the thirteen united colonies, thereafter to 
be know^n as the United States of America, did by these articles 
" enter into a firm league of friendship Avith each other for their 
common defense, the security of their liberties and their mutual 
and general welfare." 

This was well enough for a time of war. But it was not govern- 
ment. And now peace had come. Many clear-headed men in 



STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 



121 



America speedily saw that neither the Continental Congress nor its 
Articles of Confederation were of any further use. Liberty had 
been won, but it was liberty without union. The country was 
weak and exhausted from the wounds of war; prosperity that the 
people had looked for as one of the first results of freedom did not 
come ; the States, relieved from the strain of war, began to quarrel 
with one another over boundaries and trade ; the talk of taxation 
led to angry threats of resistance ; bloodshed was feared and State 
after State threatened unless this or that was done to "secede" from 
" the confederation." Congress had no authority ; people obeyed 
or disobeyed its commands as they saw fit ; the State governments 
had more real power than had the congress, and young Alexander 
Hamilton perplexed by the way things looked said sadly : " A na- 
tion without a national government is an awful spectacle." 

And it was from such men as this young Alexander Hamilton 
that relief at last came. From the very first he had seen that 
only in union was there strength. Before 
the close of the Revolution, in the year 
1780, he had written to his friend the con- 
gressman James Duane : " We must have 
a vigorous confederation if we mean to 
succeed in the contest and be happy 
thereafter." And in that very letter this 
remarkable j'oung man of twenty-three 
outlined many of the provisions that, later, 
found a place in the Constitution of the 
United States. 

For this is what came in due time — a 
paper drawn up and signed by the representatives of the people 
and accepted by each and all of the several States, by the agree- 
ments in which the United States of America were to be guided and 
governed. This is known as the Constitution of the United States. 
It was adopted in the year 1787, at a meeting together in the city 




INKSTAND USED IN SIGNING THE 
CONSTITUTION. 



122 STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 

of Philadelphia of forty-five delegates from the thirteen States 
of the new union and Avhich is known in history as the Federal 
Convention of 1787. 

This Federal Convention of 1787 has been rightly called " one of 
the most remarkable deliberative bodies known to history." George 
Washington was its presiding officer. Among its members were 
such men as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madi- 
son, Robert Morris, William Livingston, Rufus King, Roger Sher- 
man and others whose love for liberty was great, whose foresight 
was clear and whose chief desire was to present to their fellow- 
citizens a document that should enable them to live together in peace 
and unity. From the fourteenth of May to the seventeenth of Sep- 
tember, 1787, the Convention discussed, debated, modified, amended 
and resolved. Then the great paper, duly signed, was presented to 
the people as the best their representatives could do. A year of 
discussion succeeded ; one by one the thirteen States said "■ all 
right" — that is, accepted or ratified the document; and on the thir- 
teenth of September, 1788, the Constitution of the United States of 
America was officially declared to be " the law of the land." 

Let us remember these few " personalities " of the Constitution. 
Alexander Hamilton originated it ; Gouveneur Morris planned its 
construction ; James Madison put it into shape ; George Washing- 
ton was its first signer ; Benjamin Franklin was its oldest signer, 
at the age of eighty-one; Nicholas Gilman was its youngest signer, 
at the age of twenty-five. 

By the Constitution the name of the government created " for 
and by the people " was the " United States of America." It pro- 
vided for a general government whose authority was to be supreme 
on all matters of national interest and union ; this was to be divided 
into three departments: the legislative, the executive, the judiciary. 
The legislative department, called the congress, was to make the 
laws ; the executive department, consisting of the President of the 
United States and the officers selected b}^ him, was to carry out and 



r 





gj^^ 



ALEXANDEH IIAMILTON. 

" The father of the Constitution of the United States. 



STARTIN-G OUT IN LIFE. 



125 



enforce the laws; the judiciary department, or law courts of tho 
United States, was to decide all questions or disputes that might 
arise concerning the laws. To the Constitution as "the law of the 
land," the national government, the State governments and the 
people were to give entire obedience. 

The Legislative Department, which was to make the laws, was to 
consist of two branches, the Senate and the House of Representa- 
tives. Each State, no matter how large or how small it might bp, 
was to have two men in the senate, their "Senators; " the members 
of the House of Representatives were to be chosen by the States ac- 
cording to their population, so that the larger States had, of course, 
more men in the House of Representatives than the smaller States 
could have. These two Houses together comprised the Congress of 
the United States and were to levy taxes, borrow money, coin 
money, regulate commerce, establish post-offices, declare war,' raise 
and maintain armies and navies, while the States could only levy 
taxes, borrow money and employ soldiers for their own State uses. 
A majority of votes in each House of Congress was necessary to 
pass a law ; and treaties made by the President must be approved 
by the Senate. 

The Executive Department, which was to enforce th'e laws, was 
to be in the hands of a President, chosen every four years by repre- 
sentatives of the people known as electors. The president was to 
be commander-in-chief of the army and navy and to appoint the 
public officers to whom the details of carrying out the laws of 
Congress were to be given. If he did wrong he could be accused 
or " impeached " by the House of Representatives and tried by the 
Senate and in case of his removal, resignation or death his " sub- 
stitute " or Vice-President was to take his place. The only other 
duty of the Vice-President was to preside over the meetings of the 
Senate. 

The Judiciary Department which was to " interpret " the laws 
was to consist of a supreme court and certain district courts. The 



126 ' STARTIN'G OUT IN LIFE. 

judges were to be appointed by the President and to hold* office for 
life. The " head judge " was to be called the Chief Justice of the 
United States. 

So, by vote of the people of the thirteen United States, the Con- 
stitution became the law of the land. But the discussion of its pro- 
visions by the people led to a difference of opinion as to its real 
value, and this discussion resulted in a division into two parties. 
One of these parties believed that the Constitution could not be 
bettered and that the new Federal government was exactly the 
thing needed ; this party called itself the Federalists and enthu- 
siastically supported the new constitution. The other party be- 
lieved that more power should be allowed to the States ; they feared 
that too much power given to Congress might lead to a monarchy 
or a tyranny of some sort, and they declared that so strong a cen- 
tral power took away from the people the privilege of self-govern- 
ment ; this party was called the Anti-Federalists. 

But the majority of the people accepted and resolved to live up 
to the new constitution. Washington and Franklin, to whom the 
people looked with the greatest respect and confidence, supported 
it heartily and were among the chiefs of the Federalists. When, 
however, the office of president was to be filled one man alone 
was the choice of the people, and when the sixty-nine electors 
sent in their votes for president the sixty-nine ballots were all for 
George Washington of Virginia. John Adams of Massachusetts 
was elected vice-president. The city of New York was selected as 
the capital of the United States, and on the fourth of March, 1789, 
on the balcony of Federal Hall (now the site of the Sub-Treasury in 
Wall Street) in the city of New York, George Washington took the 
oath to support the Constitution as the supreme law of the land ; and 
amid the shouts and flag-waving and booming of cannon that fol- 
lowed the proclamation of Chancellor Livingstone who had admin- 
istered the oath : " Long live George Washington, President of the 
United States ! " the man who had led the armies of his land to vie- 





^^^^^.^J^^v^.^'^-^^ 



First president of the United States. 



STARTING OUT IN LIFE. 



129 



tory and guided its wisdom in determining upon its form of govern- 
ment now began his career as the official head of the new nation — 
the President of the United States. 

President Washington selected as his chief advisers and assistants 
Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, Alexander Hamilton as 




THK INAUGURATION OF mESIDKNT WASHINGTON. 



secretary of the treasury, Henry Knox as secretary of war, and 
Edmund Randolph as attorney-general. These men were to help 
him in the conduct of affairs that came within his duties as the 
chief executive officer of the new nation. Congress assembled in 
the Federal Building, with Vice-President John Adams of Massachu- 



130 ''THE AMERICAN s:' 

setts as the presiding officer or " president " of the Senate, and 
F. A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as the presiding officer or 
" Speaker " of the House of Representatives ; the " machinery of 
government" was put in motion and the new nation started out 
to try the experiment — deemed so doubtful by all the world — 
of government by the people. 

For one hundred and seventy years had the American people 
been preparing for this very experiment. It had been a long and 
hard schooling. They had secured their liberty ; and now this was 
what they were going to try to do with it: to govern themselves — 
or, in the words of the constitution which they had just adopted : 
" TFe, the People of the United States, in order to form a more per- 
fect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide 
for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure 
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain 
and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." 



CHAPTER XV 



TEE A >I E R I C A N S 



"HE new republic of the United States of America started 
out in life as a nation in 1789, with a population of nearly 
four millions (the actual figures of the first census in 
1790, were 3,929,214). Of these four millions Virginia 
^ claimed the most and led the order of the States as num- 
ber one with a population of 747,610 ; Pennsylvania was number 
two with a population of 434,373 ; North Carolina number three 
with a population of 393,751 ; and, following after, as fourth in order 




« THE AMERICANS. " 



131 




came Massachusetts Avith 378,787; New York as fifth with 340,120 
Maryland sixth with 319,728; South CaroHna seventh with 249,073 
Connecticut eighth with 237,496; New Jersey ninth with 184,139 
New Hampshire tenth with 141,885 ; Maine eleventh with 96,540 
Vermont twelfth with 85,425; Georgia thirteenth with 82,548 
Kentucky fourteenth with 73,677; Rhode Island fifteenth with 
68,825; Delaware sixteenth with 59,096 and Tennessee seventeenth 
with 35,691. Of these, at that time, four were 
not yet admitted as States : Maine was a part of 
the State of Massachusetts, Vermont was a part 
of New York, Kentucky of Virginia and Ten- 
nessee of the Carolinas. Already emigrants were 
crossing the Alleghanies and peopling the West- 
ern wilderness as Kentucky, Tennessee and the 
lands about the Ohio were called. Indeed, dur- 
ing the Revolution, a brave American borderer, 
named General George Rogers Clarke, had capt- 
ured from the British the distant outposts in the 
territory of the Illinois, along the Mississippi River, and had thus 
established a footing for American frontiersmen and given the 
United States a claim to the territory north of the Ohio River 
when the treaty of peace was signed. 

But nearly all of the four millions of Americans above classified 
were settled along the Atlantic coast line. The western wilderness 
had, as yet, too many terrors. The sea was their main highway ; 
the sailing-packets their principal means of travel. Lumbering 
stages did, indeed, run between the leading cities, but it took quite 
as many days by land as by water, for roads were bad, bridges few 
and ferries clumsy and dangerous. 

Philadelphia was the chief town of the United States. It had in 
1790, a population of 42,520, while New York had but 33,131, Bos- 
ton but 18,038 and there was no Chicago at all ! Trade with the 
interior was by six-horse wagons, by pack-horse or llat-boat ; what 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARKE. 



132 



" THE AMERICANS:' 



little mails there were could be carried by the post^riders ; news- 
papers were few and dull ; schools were jDoor in instruction and 
cruel in discipline; tallow candles, grease "dips" or pitch pine 
were the only lights ; wood was the only fuel ; coal and stoves were 
unknown ; farming was rough and far from thorough and fully one 
seventh of the four million Americans were negro slaves. 

The buying and selling of black people for use in the farm labor 
and housework of America dated from the days of the Spanish con- 
quistadores who, as early as 1508, when they found that the con- 
quered Indians could not stand the killing work forced upon them 

by their cruel task-masters, brought into the 
Spanish Main negroes from Africa to take 
their places. In 1619 a Dutch captain ventr 
ured with a cargo of nineteen African slaves 
to Virginia ; and from their sale to the 
planters along the James River dates the 
two hundred and fifty years of negro slavery 
in North America. At the close of the 
Revolution slavery existed in all the States, 
though Massachusetts had already declared 
it illegal. It was not, however, suited to the 
peculiar climate of the Northern common- 
wealths whose methods of farmino; were 
widely different from those employed in the 
rice and tobacco plantations of the South. 
So it came about that nearly seven eighths 
of all the slaves in the United States were 
in Maryland, Virginia and North and South Carolina which were 
also, as we have seen, the richest and most populous of the thirteen 
States. New York owned the largest number of any Northern State 
— fully twenty thousand. But, even then, clear-headed and righi> 
minded men saw the evil of slavery and warned their countrymen 
of the risks of continuing it. 




JJORUOWIXG FIRE IN OLD DAYS. 



The founders of the srovernment — 



''■THE AMERICANS:' 



133 



\t)\, 



// 



Washington and Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Jay and Hamilton 
— opposed the degrading system as unsuited to a land of liberty, 
and earnestly desired its abolition. But in 1793 a Connecticut man 
who was teaching school in 

Georgia, Eli Whitney by name, ^'^^' ■■ 

invented a machine for clean- 
ing cotton. This was called 
the cotton-gin. With it a 
slave who, before that time, 
could not clean over five 
pounds of cotton a day, could 
easily clean a thousand pounds 
a day. At once the cultiva- 
tion of cotton became the 
chief industry of the South; 
the value of slave labor was 
greatly increased ; the warn- 
ings of the fathers of the re- 
public were disregarded and 
the fight for the keeping up 
and extension of the hateful 
system continued for nearly 
seventy years. 

With only sailing vessels or 
horses as means of communi- 
cation between the different 
sections, travel was not very 
general and visiting was not 
greatly indulged in. Neighborhoods kept to themselves, for when 
it took six days to go from Boston to New York and three from 
New York to Pliiladelphia the roads were never crowded. Presi- 
dent AYashington rode in his private coach all the way from Mount 
Vernon to New York to be inaugurated, and the journey occupied 




*'^ 



'■y. 






" ICTXG COTTON. 



i 



134 



« TUE AMERICANS. 



seven days, so filled was it with receptions, greetings, processions 
and enthusiasm. 

The adoption of the Constitution and the inauguration of the 
new government made men and women intensely American. They 




illi> SlAGK CUACll. 



remembered that in the early days of opposition to Great Britain 
they had been able to do without the manufactures of the mother 
country and they saw no reason why they should not now depend 
upon American productions, and develop home resources. 



" THE AMERICANS. " 



135 



So, all over the land the people combined to use as far as possible 
American materials only. Rich and poor alike wore plain clothes 
ot strong home stuff ; the ladies met in " spinning-bees " where 
each one tried to out-do the other in the work accomplished ; 
" American broadcloth " became the fashion ; and both President 
Washington and Vice-President Adams took the oath cf office 
dressed from head to foot in home-spun garments " whose ir^aterial 
was the product of American soil." 

The Revolution, however, had not altogether destroyed that very 
objectionable feeling of "I am better than you," that royalty and 
aristocracy are responsible for and that is so hard for people to get 
rid of. The Declaration of Independence had told the world that 
" all men are created free and equal," but for many 
people, even in free America, it was hard to admit 
the equality. So, in the little cities and in the 
neighborhood centers of the United States there 
existed for years that unwise feeling of superiority 
that we call aristocracy, due to the wealth or posi- 
tion of certain favored families. Even when Wash- 
ington was to be inaugurated the Congress was 
perplexed what title to give him. Some, with the 
remembrance of the old titles of royalty still in 
mind wished to address him as '"Hig-li Mig-htiness ; " 
some wished to speak of him as " His Highness the 
President of the United States of America and 
Protector of their Liberty;" "Your Grace" and 
" His Excellency," were both proposed ; but good common sense 
won the day and it was resolved that the address should be simply 
" the President of the United States." And " To the President " 
or " By the President " have been the address and signature 
pertaining to the office to this day. 

But though aristocratic and high-flown manners and feelings 
iound place in certain sections, and though the dear and noble- 




MARTHA WASIIINGTOX, WIFE 
OF TIIH PRESIDENT. 



136 



THE AMERICANS. 



minded wife of the President was ridiculously styled by many 
" Lady Washington," while men and women aped the display and 
costume and fashionable follies of the rotten old courts and king- 
doms across the sea, the great mass of the Americans were plain, 
sensible, hard-working men and women, who laughed at all such 
pretended " style " and farmed and fished and bought and sold in 
the proud knowledge that all men were equal before the law as well 
as in the sight of the good God who had created them. 

More and more, as population increased, the 
young men of the homes by the sea went west 
to seek their fortune and to occupy new lands 
in the far-off Indian country, where for years 
the forests and valleys of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee and the Ohio region had been first the 
hunting ground and then the homes of hardy 
r>^ r ■* frontiersmen and hopeful settlers. The Indians 

who had hunted and fought in this fertile 
(.,. section for generations, fiercely resisted the 

coming of the white ' man ; but it was to no 
purpose. In spite of arrow and tomahawk and scalping-knife such 
mighty hunters as Daniel Boone cleared the pathway in what was 
called " the dark and bloody ground," for settlement and civiliza- 
tion ; population increased; and, in 1792, Kentucky was admitted 
into the union of States, while Tennessee followed in 1796. To 
the northeast Vermont, which after years of dispute as to whether 
it belonged to New Hampshire or New York had set up for itself 
during the Revolution, was in 1791 admitted into the Union as the 
fourteenth State. 

By the treaty of Paris, which established peace between the 
United States and Great Britain after the Revolutionary War, the 
boundaries of the United States were acknowledged to be Canada 
on the north, the Mississippi River on the west, and Florida (ex- 
tending in a narrow strip to the Mississippi) on the south. The 






THE NEW HOME IN THE OHIO CoUMKY. 

"/« was fertile, fair and every way attractive." 



« THE AMERICANS:' 139 

vast territory extending from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes 
was called the Northwest Territory and into this section settlers 
speedily found their way. It was fertile, fair and every way attract- 
ive, and promised a better outlook for pleasant homes and produc- 
tive farming than did the rocky shores and sterile hill-slopes of New 
England. As colonists, the people of America had experienced such 
bitter days with England that when their own people went west to 
settle in the new lands beyond the Ohio they dealt with them justly 
and kindly, and the "Ordinance of 1787" which provided for the 
government of the Northwest Territory was one of the broadest 
and most generous agreements known to history. Daniel Webster 
said of it: "We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of an- 
tiquity ; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus ; but 
I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, 
has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character 
than the ordinance of 1787." By this "ordinance" slavery was 
forbidden ; the inhabitants were assured religious freedom, trial by 
jury and equal rights ; conmon schools were to be supported and, 
as soon as the population was large enough, five new States were 
to be formed from the territory admitted to the Union and were to 
te governed by the people themselves. This ordinance and this 
territory developed in time into the great and prosperous States of 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. 

So, with the new life and the mighty inspiration that liberty and 
the privilege of self-government brought, the new American re- 
public started toward progress. All was not smooth at "first. There 
were disputes between sections and jealousies between law-makers ; 
there were struggles for place and power; there were protests 
against what some deemed the " tyranny of the majority ; " the 
debts incurred by the years of war Avere heavy and needed to be 
met by that very taxation that so many Americans had learned to 
detest and, from this last cause, two " rebellions" sprung — Shay's 
insurrection in Massachusetts in 1786, and the whiskey insurrection 



140 '' THE AMERICANS.'' 

in Pennsylvania in 1794, both of whicli needed to be put down by 
force of arms. The exciting days of the French Revolution in 1789^ 
when, j^roiiting by the example of America, the French people 
threw off the yoke of the kings (in a much more bloody and brutal 
fashion, however, than it was done in America), very nearly dragged 
the American republic into war ; but Washington's firm hand on the 
helm guided the ship of state safely through the troubled waters of 
a dangerous sympathy. The wars on the frontier into which the 
settlement of the Ohio country provoked the Indians, begun, in 
1790, in defeat under General St. Clair, ended, in 1794, in victory 
under General Wayne. These secured from the red owners the 
rights to possession forever in the present State of Ohio. Further 
rights in the Northwest, and the settlement of disputed questions as 
to who had the "say" on the northern border, were secured hy a 
new treaty with England, concluded by John Jay in 1795. 

In spite, however, of debt and jealousies and questions of rights 
and privileges, in spite of angry uprisings, misunderstandings and 
rumors of war, the new nation speedily began to prosper and under 
the two terms which George Washington served as president, bore 
itself with dignity and showed the Avorld its ability to live in good 
order and to maintain a successful government. Europe still looked 
on doubtfully, pointing to the terrible times in France as one of 
the first fruits of American independence and prophesying similar 
anarchy and final downfall for America. But, unmoved by this, the 
United States held on the course resolved upon ; commerce increased ; 
the money of the United States, first coined in 1793, was placed in 
circulation ; enterprising sea-captains displayed the American flng 
in foreign waters, and in 1790 carried it around the Avorld on the 
good ship Columbia of Boston; turn-pike roads were built; canals 
were dug ; colleges were founded. Thus American enterprise was 
born ; and, as the stormy seventeenth century drew to its close, the 
United States of America began tc challenge the attention and 
admiration of the world. 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



141 



CHAPTER XVI. 



UNSETTLED DAYS 




N 1796 George Washington declined to serve as president 
for a third term of four years. Issuing a remarkable 
" Farewell Address to the American People," he retired to 
private life and settled down to enjoy the rest he had 
earned after forty-five years of public service. The home 
in which he lived and died, at Mount Yernon on the Potomac River, 
has continued to this day an honored place of pilgrimage for all 
Americans. 

Upon the retirement of Washington people realized that some 
other man must be found to serve as president and they at once 
began to say w^hat they wanted done and who they wished to dc 
it. Discussion ran hot and high ; the Federalists took as their can- 
didate for president, Washington's 
vice-president, John Adams of 
Massachusetts ; the anti-Federal- 
ists supported Washington's first 
Secretary of State, Thomas Jeffer- 
son of Virginia. Adams was elected 
and, under the law as it then ex- 
isted, Jefferson, the defeated candi- 
date for president, became vice- 
president. 

Even before this was concluded 
the country was plunged into dis- 
putes with France. Washington had kept America from making 
promises to F -^nce, and the revolutionists then in power in that 




WASHINGTON'S HOME AT MOUNT VEUNON 



142 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



disturbed land declared that, if the United States desired peace with 
France, peace must be paid for. So they set to work to annoy their 
old ally. The American minister was driven from the country; 
American commerce was damaged by unjust laws; American ships 
and cargoes were preyed upon ; and American envoys, when sent 
across the sea to protest, were told they must pay or suffer. But 
Americans had proved that they were able to defy injustice. 
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," was the 








V ^i 







^f 



d^ 



TRAINING ICECKUITS FOU WAR WITH I'KANCK 



famous answer they made in reply to the French demands, and 
at once they prepared for war. 

Washington came from his quiet home at Mount Vernon to once 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



143 




JOHN ADAMS. 

Second president of the United States. 



again take his place at the head of the army ; the black cockade, 
worn as the sjnnbol of patriotism, was seen in every hat ; old Con- 
tinental uniforms that had seen service in the Revolution were 
hunted out of chest and closet ; and, on many a village common, 
the raw recruits, in all sorts of funny costumes, drilled and marched 
and " trained " with all the fervor and enthusiasm of the old fight- 



i.44 UNSETTLED DAYS. 

ing days of " twenty years ago." The navy was increased, and 
several sea-fights had taken place — notably one off the Island of 
St. Kitt's where Commodore Truxton in the wjir-ship Constellation 
^ought and captured the French frigate L'lnsurgente ; the song 
' Hail, Columbia ! " was upon every one's lips and then, even before 
war had been declared. Napoleon Bonaparte, who had put himself 
at the head of French affairs, made peace with the United States 
in 1799, and the war cloud passed over. 

Whenever there is danger of war people become greatly excited 
and sometimes do very foolish things. And so it happened that, 
when war with France seemed probable, the law-makers assembled 
in Congress, of whom the majority belonged to the Federalist party, 
passed certain laws that proved to be both stupid and hurtful to the 
best interests of the country. They feared '' foreign influence " and 
they wished to show the world the " power " of the United States ; 
so they made a law by which the president could arrest and exile 
any foreigner or " alien " who was thought to be dangerous. This 
was called the " Alien Law." Another measure punished any 
person who dared say a word in public against the government ; 
this was called the " Sedition Law." At once the opponents of 
the Federalists who called themselves Republicans cried out '■'■ For 
shame ! " The Alien Law, they said, took away the right to a trial 
by jury ; the Sedition Law was a blow at free speech. The American 
people had learned to value these rights for which they had fought 
too highly to permit them to be abused. Popular opinion sided 
with the Republicans, and at the Presidential election of 1800, amid 
great excitement. President John Adams and the Federalists were 
defeated. 

But the success of the Republican ticket gave Thomas Jefferson 
and Aaron Burr an equal number of votes. The Constitution 
declared that the person receiving the highest number of votes 
should be president, and the one receiving the next highest number 
should be vice-president. So here was a proljlem : which should be 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



145 



the president, Jefferson or Burr ? The decision was referred to th< 
House of Representatives and, there also, it resulted in a " tie-vote." 
There was a great deal of delay and much angry talk, but finally 
the struggle came to an end and Jefferson was chosen president 
with Burr as vice-president. 

But this showed one weak spot in the Constitution ; it would not 
do to have such a struggle repeated and the Constitution was 
changed or " amended," so far as 
to direct the presidential electors 
to vote for but one man for presi- 
dent and to make a separate bal- 
lot for the \dce-president. And 
this method has continued to 
this day. 

In December, 1799, George 
Washington died. The news 
came like a shock to the whole 
country ; the world mourned a 
great man gone ; England low- 
ered her flag to half-mast ; France 
draped in black her standards 
and her flags and America, from 
north to south, sorrowed for the 
loss of her greatest and wisest 
man. Firm, prudent, sagacious, 
just, courageous, patient, true and good, this illustrious man is now 
revered by all Americans as truly the " father of his country " ; his 
birthda}^ is a national festival ; his memory is dear to all, and now, 
almost a century after his death, there is not an American but 
repeats with deepest faith the eulogy pronounced upon George 
Washington by John Marshall when making before the Congress 
public announcement of this good man's death : '' First in war, 
firs\. in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Third president of the United States. 



146 



UNSETTLED BAYS. 



Washington's greatest monument is the memory of his spotless 
name ; but as a noble monument, also, may be regarded " the Federal 
City," which, selected by him, was built upon land given to the 
general government by the States of Maryland and Virginia, and 
set apart as the District of Columbia. After his death the new city 
received the name of Washington and was made the capital of the 
United States. 

In 1800 the government was removed there ; President Jeffer- 
son was there inaugurated ; and to-day the straggling forest settle- 
ment of 1800 has developed into one of the most beautiful of 
cities, one of the most imposing of capitals. 

Thomas Jefferson, as has been said, was the greatest of Democrats. 
The success of his party was the success of new men and new 
manners. The old colonial ideas that birth and blood were meant 
to lead were done away with, even as the wigs and cues, the short 

clothes and buckles, the 
frills and patches and pow- 
der of the eighteenth cen- 
tury gave place to modern 
manners and a less theat- 
rical dress. The nine- 
teenth century meant pri)- 
gress and, even from its 
earliest years, progress 
was the order of the day. 
Profiting by the wars by 
which Europe was almosi 
torn asunder, America'^s 
commerce grew to grea'i 
proportions; her debts were speedily settled, her ships were seen 
in every quarter of the globe, and her territory was very largely 
increased. 

In 1803 Napoleon seeing that the American possessions of Franf i 




WASHINGTON'S TOMB AT MOUNT VERNON. 




THE SALE OF LOUISIANA. 

Napoleon sold the vast territory for fifteen millions of dollars. 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 149 

would be ill danger from the hostile arms of England, sold to the 
United States for fifteen millions of dollars, the vast territory lyino- 
between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and known 
as Louisiana. This more than doubled the possessions of the United 
States, and from this land purchase of 1803 have since been made 
the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, 
North and South Dakota, Montana and the Indian Territory. It 
also included goodly portions of the present States of Minnesota, 
Colorado and Wyoming. 

The new republic was fast growing into a successful and ambi- 
tious young giant, but, like many ambitious young men, it boasted and 
assumed too much and frequently got into trouble. Fired by the 
success of the Louisiana purchase in 1803, it stretched out toward the 
Pacific and, by virtue of an exploring expedition conducted into the far 
northwestern region by Lewis and Clarke in 1804, it laid claim to 
what was known as the Oregon country — a claim that was disputed 
by England for nearly forty years. 

In 1800 the population of the United States had increased to 
5,308,483 ; in 1810 it had grown to 7,239,881. Discovery and in- 
vention, though weak and unsatisfactory, were just beginnino- to 
open people's eyes, and were giving a new push to American enter- 
prise. Robert Fulton invented the steamboat in 1807, and by his 
success made the great rivers of the United States more valuable 
than ever before as highways for commerce. Coal was discovered 
in Pennsylvania, but no one knew just how to use it to advantage. 
Dissatisfied people were beginning to find fault with their circum- 
stances and their surroundings, and no less a personage than the 
vice-president of the United States, Aaron Burr, smarting under 
what he considered ill-treatment by the Government and having 
wickedly killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, hatched up a treason- 
able scheme to found a government of his own in the new western 
country, but was arrested, tried, acquitted, disgraced and forgotten. 
The people of the United States might be uneasy and ambitious, but 



150 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



they were loyal to the government they had set up, and such schemes 
of treason as was this of Burr found neither favor nor support 
among them. 

But in Europe things were becoming worse and worse, as 
Napoleon Bonaparte, declaring himself emperor of France, found 
himself at war with the world. France with the most powerful 
arni}^ in the world, and England with the most formidable navy, 
made things decidedly unpleasant for each other and the rest of the 
world. England declared a blockade of all European ports against 
France — that is, refused to allow the vessels of any nation to enter 
the harbors of France or her allies ; France retaliated by forbidding 
all vessels to sail into English harbors. As American ships at that 
time did most of the carrying trade these decrees of France and 

England most deeply affected American 
commerce. Congress would, had it 
dared, have gone to war to redress this 
outrage ; it had in 1801 declared war 
against the Mohammedan pirates of the 
Barbary states in North Africa, and had 
punished them severely in what has been 
known as the War with Tripoli ; but to 
fight Tripoli and to fight Great Britain 
were quite different affairs and the 
United States could not hope to beat 
Great Britain on the seas. So, instead, 
Congress tried to punish both the great 
powers by refusing to trade with them 
and passed in 1807 a measure known 
as the " Embargo Act," which forbade 
the sailing of American vessels to any foreign port. But this was 
almost suicide. American ships lay rotting at their docks ; Ameri- 
can commerce was very nearly destroyed ; New York and New 
England protested loudly and some particularly unpatriotic people 




THE FALLING FLAG. 
yWir icith Tripoli. 



UNSETTLED DAYS. 



151 



in the Eastern States, when they saw their business ruined and 
their commerce dead began to talk, very forcibly, of " seceding " 
from the Union. 

The Embargo Act proved so unpopular and hurtful that Congress 
soon repealed it and in 
1809 passed, in its place, 
what was known as the 
" Non - Intercourse Act." 
This permitted American 
vessels to trade with all 
countries except France 
and England. But it was 
too late to save the lost 
popularity of President 
Jefferson. He had served 
two terms as president, but 
the Embargo Act was the 
means of defeating his re- 
nomination and his jDarty 
(which was now often called 
the Democratic party) was 
obhged in 1808 to take 
another man as candidate. 
This was James Madison 
of Virginia, who had been 
a member of the historic 
Continental Congress and 
had served as Secretary of 
State under Jefferson. 

The Non-Intercourse Act was repealed in 1810 and the new admin- 
istration of President Madison found itself face to face with a prob- 
lem that must be solved at once if prosperity was to be regained for 
those sections of the country which had been the principal sufferers 




JAMES MADISON. 

Fourth president of the United States. 



J52 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



under the inifortuiiate Embargo Act. Tlie old tyrants across the 
sea were bent on "crowding " the new nation beyond the limit of 
patience. The "young giant" must prepare to stand his ground 



and either fight or fall. 



CHAPTER XVIL 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 




T is very hard to forget. When you have been wronged 
or worried by any of your companions you may learn to 
forgive them, but the memory of the wrong that has been 
done you lasts a long time. 

It was so with the United States and Eno-land. The 
bitterness of the strife that brought on the Revolution, the ill-feeling 
that accompanied those seven years of war continued as unpleasant 
memories long after the treaty of peace was signed. And the boast- 
ing about success assumed by Americans was as distasteful to 
Englishmen as was English contempt of America exasperating to 
Americans. 

When in 1809 the "Non-Intercourse Act" was repealed the 
Congress of the United States said to France and Great Britain : 
" If one of you will recall the laws you have made that are so hard 
on American commerce, Ave will trade with you only and will ' boy- 
cott' the other nation." To which Napoleon at once responded. 
"All right; I will." He didn't, but he said he would, and on the 
strength of his false promise the United States at once cut off its 
trade with England, and began to boast about it, too. For, you see, 
the old hatred still lived. 



A WIii:S2'ZB WITH THE OLD FOE. 



153 



Great Britain, confident of her strength upon the seas, treated 
America with more contempt tlian ever. She claimed the right to 
search American ships and take out any sailors that might seem to 
be of English or Irish birth. Of course the British searchers were 
not over-scrupulous and many American citizens were seized as 
British sailers, and forced to serve in English war-ships. British 
men-of-war sailed up and. down the American coast, attacking and 
capturing American merchant 
vessels, while, in the West, 
agents of the British govern- 
ment stirred up the Indians to 
hostility against American set- 
tlers, furnished them arms and 
ammunition, and backing up the 
Indian leader Tecumseh, chief 
of the Shawnees, brought about 
at last in 1811 an Indian war. 
This war was, however, speed- 
ily ended by General William 
Henry Harrison, the governor 
of Indiana Territory, who, 
marching against Tecumseh, 
utterly defeated the Indians at 
the famous battle of Tippe- 
canoe. 

All these signs of English 
hostility and hatred had their 
effect at last upon America. 

Instead of calmly talking things over and trjing to arrange the 
difficulty America " got mad " with England. All talk of peace 
ceased. Patience w\as exhausted, self-respect could not longer sub- 
mit, the old " spirit of '76 " was renewed, and though New England 
objected to the war as unwise and w^rong, popular opinion forced 




TECUMSEH, CHIEF OF THE SHAWICKES. 



154 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



Congress into action and on the eighteenth of June, 1812, President 
Madison formally declared war against Great Britain. 

The country was altogether unprepared for such a conflict, 
had a thousand war-ships ; the United States had but 



Eno-land 




THK BATTLE OF TIPPKCANOE. 



twelve ; England's army was a victorious force of disciplined soldiers : 
America had no army ; the country was poor ; the president had 
been forced into war contrary to his own judgment ; the generals in 
command of the raw and undisciplined soldiers were veterans " left 
over " from the Eevolution. too old to be of real service and Great 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



155 



Britain felt that it would be but an easy task to whip the youno- 
nation that thirty years before had caused her so much shame. 

From first to last the land battles of the War of 1812 were a 
series of defeats, brightened by only a few victories. The soldiers 
had no confidence in their generals, until generals had really been 
made by the bitter experience of defeat. For the most part it was 
a "leaderless war." The names of Winfield Scott and Andrew 
Jackson, with perhaps that of William Henry Harrison, are almost 
the only ones that come down to us as those of 
successful leaders. 

The war was mismanaged from the start. Many 
of the people were opposed to it ; the Government 
w^as absolutely incapable of directing it ; the troops 
lacked discipline ; the generals knew nothing of 
how to handle or how to lead their men ; the 
Canadian frontier, then almost a wilderness, was 
foolishly crossed and recrossed for the impossible 
invasion of Canada; posts that should have been 
held at all hazards were surrendered or abandoned, 
and important centers that should have been de- 
fended were left at the mercy of the enemy. Thus was Detroit on 
the northwestern border surrendered by General Hull and all the 
territory beyond the Ohio country lost to the Americans ; the 
territory of Maine was seized and held by the British; and in 
August, 1814, five thousand British soldiers marched through Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, drove the militia before them again and again, 
entered Wr-shington from which the inefficient government had 
fled, burned the Capitol, the White House (as the home of the presi- 
dent was called) and most of the public buildings, and then sailed 
to attack the city of Baltimore. With the exception of such 
engagements as the Battle of the Thames and of Chippewa Plains 
and the wonderful victory at New Orleans — a needless battle 
fought after peace had been agreed upon — the history of the land 



FtnirewGJaclisoA* 




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k 




i 




W^^ 


'^KmjmWit^K' 


i^l' 


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156 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



battles of the War of 1812 is, as Mr. Roosevelt says, " not cheerful 
readino; for an American." 

One result, however, these unsuccessful battles had. Even out of 
defeat they brought discipline. They made fighters out of the raw 
recruits, and, as one historian tells us, " two years of w^arfare gave 
us soldiers wdio could stand against the best men of Britain." 

But it w\as a schooling dearly bought. The grapple on land with 
which the old foemen again tried their strength was dreary and dis- 
heartenino" enouo-h in its results to the Americans ; dissatisfaction at 
the conduct of the w^ar became so strong in certain sections that the 
opponents of the government met in convention at Hartford in 1814, 
and threatened to set up a separate government for New England 
which, so it was claimed, the government had left to take care of it- 
self ; the treasury w\as bankrupt ; the leaders were incompetent ; and, 
after the burning of Washington, the situation appeared so desperate 
that the English lookers-on exultantly declared that '^ the ill-organ- 
ized association is on the eve of dissolution and the world is speedily 
to be delivered of the mischievous example of the existence of a 

government founded on demo- 
cratic rebellion." 

But all this while the unexpect- 
ed was happening. The Ameri- 
can navy from which nothing had 
been anticipated, and which, at the 
opening of the war, it was projDOsed 
to keep in port to save it from 
destruction by the formidable British fleets of war, took up the 
challenge that England had so contemptuously flung at America, 
sailed boldly out against the stoutest and most invincible British 
war-ships, swelled its force by swift-sailing privateers, and showed 
so much pluck and courage that it succeeded in doing more damage 
to British shipping and commerce than any nation had ever accom- 
plished. Out of eighteen lake and ocean duels the American men- 




THE UUINIiD WHITE HOUSE. 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



157 



of-war won fifteen. The deeds of Hull and Macdonough, of Lawrence 
and Perry, of Decatur and Biddle and Bainbridge, of Warrington, 
Stewart and Porter, of Jones and Burrows and Reid — American 
captains all — very nearly cause us to forget the defeats and discour- 
agements of the war on land and make us agree with Mr. Roosevelt 
when he says " it must be but a poor- 
spirited American whose veins do not tin- 
gle with pride when he reads of the cruises 
and fights of the sea-captains and their 
grim prowess, which kept the old Yankee 
flag floating over the waters of the Atlantic 
for three years, in the teeth of the mighti- 
est naval power the world has ever seen." 

Most wars are like boyish quarrels — 
altogether unnecessary and easily to be 
avoided if but the quarrelers will soften 
their hearts instead of doubling up their 
fists. But when bullying or stupidity bring 
on either a quarrel or a war then resistance 
is right and valor is manliness. " Beware," 
says Shakespeare, 




KEEPING THE 'old FLAG AFLOAT. 



"Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, 
Bear it that the opposed may beware of thee." 

The War of 1812 was an unnecessary quarrel. Had England been 
less insolent and America better guided, the war could easily have 
been avoided ; or had there entered into the early dispute the more 
friendly spirit of what we to-day call " arbitration " no shot from 
fort or ship need have been fired. But the war did come ; and, as 
we look back upon it, we are proud to know that American pluck 
and bravery carried the struggle through, despite poor leadership 
on the land and heavier force on the water. " Don't give up the 
ship," cried the brave Captain Lawrence as he fell on the blood- 



158 A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 

stained deck of the Chesapeake. That appeal was the battle cry 
throusrhout the war; with it nailed to the mast of Commodore 
Perry's flag-ship in the famous Battle of Lake Erie, the blue jack- 
ets stuck to its commands so well that Perry broke the British line, 
captured the whole fleet, and sent off his famous announcement of 
victory : " We have met the enemy, and thej' are ours." 

The war began with the disgraceful surrender of Detroit ; it closed 
with the marvelous victory at New Orleans. There, on the eighth 
of January, 1815, Sir Edward Pakenham wdth twelve thousand 
British regulars — men who had met and conquered the veteran 
troops of Napoleon — assaulted the hastily constructed earthworks 
behind which General Jackson with six thousand undisciplined sol- 
diers aw^aited the attack. Within half an hour the whole British 
army w^as in full retreat, beaten back by Jackson's stubborn resist- 
ance. Pakenham and more than twenty-five hundred of his men 
were killed; the Americans lost but eight killed and thirteen 
wounded. "Few victories in histor}," says Mr. Johnson, "have 
been so complete ; and this one enabled the United States to forget 
many of the early failures." 

It was a victory of leadership. The war at last had developed 
one great general — Andrew Jackson of Tennessee who, says Mr. 
Roosevelt, " M-ith his cool head and quick eye, his stout heart and 
strong hand, stands out in history as the ablest general the United 
States produced from the outbreak of the Revolution down to the 
beginning of the great Rebellion." 

Had there been known such a thing as an ocean telegraph this 
battle need not have been fought, for a treaty of peace had been 
signed at Ghent in Belgium on the twenty-fourth of December, 
1814. Peace w\asjo3'fully welcomed. It was greatly needed. Busi- 
ness w^as at a standstill; commerce was nearly destroyed; money 
was scarce, and distress and poverty -were felt in every section. 
The war had cost the country nearly eighty millions of dollars, and 
people were weary of the struggle. 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



159 



But it had settled several things which, though not mentioned in 
the treaty of peace, were most important to iVmerica. The victory 
of General Harrison at the River Thames, closed the long struggle 
for possession in the west, for there the frontiersmen of the Ohio 




JACKSOX'S SHARPSHOOTERS AT NEW ORLEANS. 



broke down the barrier to settlement that Indians, Frenchmen and 
Britishers had sought to maintain, and settled it forever that the 
west was to be American. The long series of ocean victories proved 
the power of America on the sea, and never again did Great Britain 



160 



A WRESTLE WITH THE OLD FOE. 



attempt to enforce that insolent " right of search " that had been 
one of the causes of the Revolution, and brought on the War of 
1812. 

In spite of the dissatisfaction at the course of the government 
and its weakness in the' hour of danger the Democratic-Republican 

party, while the war was be- 
ing waged, was strong enough 
to re-elect Madison as presi- 
dent in 1813. In fact the 
old Federalist party that had 
started the government in 
1789, came to an end during 
the war-time. The younger 
men of the country who hotly 
supported the war with Eng- 
land, had no patience with 
a party that opposed it ; the 
Hartford Convention of 1814 
that talked so foolishly of 
separation from the Union, 
was largely the work of Fed- 
eralists and was their last act. 
For peace and the Ameri- 
can victories showed the real 
strength of the United States, and its citizens had no use for a 
party that seemed to be only tlie party of submission and grum- 
bling. The Hartford Convention and Jackson's victory gave the 
death biow to the Federalist party, and with the close of the war 
but one remained — and to this day this has been known as the 
Democratic Party. 




AMBUSHKI) IX THE INDIAX COUNTllY. 



STATE-MAKING. 161 



CHAPTER XVm. 



STATE-MAKING. 




HE first suit of clothes is speedily outgrown. Legs 
lengthen ; arms stretch out ; and tucks must either be let 
down, pieces added or new suits cut and made if the grow- 
ing girl or boy is to be considered as properly clothed. 
They must have more growing room. 
The first suit of the United States made of thirteen well-matched 
pieces, was speedily outgrown. Even before the Revolution the 
first feelers had been stretched out toward the distant west, and 
when peace was declared, such statesmen as Thomas Jefferson began 
to cut and carve the western territory obtained from England, so as 
to make at least seventeen States. Mr. Jefferson had even selected 
names for his new States that were to spring up in prairie-land. 
They were a combination of Latin, Greek and American-Indian 
names, and odd enough they sound to us. Here are ten of them 
as they were proposed to Congress : Sylvania, Cherronesus, Michi- 
gania, Assenisipi, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, 
Polypotamia, and Pelisipia. But neither the divisions nor the 
names of the suggested new States found favor with the Congress ; 
while the code of laws that was proposed for their government 
was also rejected, though it contained two provisions that were 
indicative of the principles of so strong a Democrat as Jefferson : 
one was the abolition of slavery after 1800 ; the other, that no one 
holding an hereditary title should be admitted to citizenship. 

We have already seen that soon after the Revolution three new 
States were added to the original thirteen, namely : Vermont in 
1791, Kentucky in 1792 and Tennessee in 1796. These were the 



162 



STA TE-3IAKING. 



result of a settlement of the disputes as to Ijoundaries and owner- 
ship of land between New Hampshire and New York, Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, Virginia and the two Carolinas. These once adjusted, 
and the new States formed, the settlers who, after the Revolution, 
with well-loaded pack-horse and clumsy Conastoga wagon, with wives 
and children, cattle and scanty household goods and farming imple- 
ments, had migrated by thousands into the farther west, soon de- 










Tim CONASTOGA WAGON. 



sired citizenship. The opening up of the Ohio country in 1787, the 
purchase of the vast territory of Louisiana from France in 1803, 
and Spain's sale of its territory of Florida in 1819 added an immense 
amount of unsettled land to the United States possessions, and emi- 
grants from Europe or restless residents of the eastern States were 
constantly on the move west. In 1815 General Jackson in a series 
of rapid fights defeated the restless Creek Indians in Alabama and 
opened the s^outhwest to American occupation, and the use of steam- 




THE MAIL BOAT ON THE OHIO. 

Before the days of railroads and steamboats." 



STATE-MAKING. 165 

boats for navigation and trade on the Mississippi and other western 
rivers hastened the growth of western settlement. For Fulton's in- 
vention of the steamboat had — after the first doubts were over 

been quickly made use of by progressive Americans. Before 1812 
steamboats were running on the Hudson, the Ohio, the St. Lawrence, 
Raritan and Delaware rivers ; steam ferry-boats crossed and re- 
crossed the East River, between New York and Brooklyn ; and in 
1816 a steamboat ploughed its way up the Mississippi and into the 
Ohio to Louisville. 

The settlers of the west found an easier land to prepare and 
cultivate than did their ancestors of two centuries before, but they 
had frequent and desperate hostilities with the former Indian owners 
of the land (who never could understand that to sell or give a piece 
of land deprived them of all rights to such land) and the question 
of slavery in the new sections was already causing much ques- 
tioning and dispute. 

The successful close of the War of 1812 brought many new people 
across the sea to settle in and become citizens of the growino- West- 
ern Republic. The west began to fill up ; in the northwestern and 
southwestern territories population gradually centered about certain 
available points and, out of the territories, a number of States were 
formed. Ohio had been admitted to the Union in 1802 and Louisi- 
ana in 1812. After the war, others followed. Indiana was admitted 
in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818 and Alabama in 1819 ; 
Maine (outgrowing the care of Massachusetts of which it had been 
a part for fully two hundred years) came in as a new State in 1820, 
and Missouri Avas admitted in 1821. 

So you see that by the year 1820 all the territory east of the 
Mississippi River, except that wild northern lake region now occu- 
pied by Michigan and Wisconsin, had been cut up into States. They 
had been admitted also alternately — first a northern and then a 
southern one, for the question of slavery was from the first a puz- 
zling one to settle. Really the United States of America held by 



166 



jSTA TE-MAKING. 



the teachings of the Declaration of Independence and did not be- 
heve in slavery. In 1808 the bringing in — or importation — of 
negro slaves was forbidden by the United States government ; be- 
fore 1820 the keeping of slaves had almost entirely disappeared in 
all the States north of Virginia; by the ordinance of 1787 slavery 
was forbidden north of the Ohio River. But slave labor Avas con- 
sidered a necessity in the 
South ; the planters of the 
vast fields of cotton, tobacco 
and rice, thought they could 
not get along unless they had 
unpaid labor on their great 
plantations; and so, though 
disliked by many, slavery at 




AN OLD-TIME LOUISIANA SUGAll MILL. 



length became what is known 
as '' an institution " throuo:h- 
out the South. The question 
of slavery therefore, gradu- 
ally grew in importance and 
became a national matter. 
Congress tried to suit both 
sections by keeping the bal- 
ance even and adding a new 
State first to the North and 
tlien to the South — first a free State and then a slave State. But 
when Missouri came knocking at the door of the Union asking 
admission the question as to how it should come in caused a hot 
discussion. The section had belonged to the old French territory 
of Louisiana, a slave-holding land ; the ordinance of 1787 which 
prohibited slavery north of the Ohio did not affect it, because the 
Ohio did not touch it. But the people of the north argued that 
if Missouri came in as a slave State it would open all the territory 
west of the Mississippi to slaveholders ; the people of the South said 



STATE-MAKING. 167 

that the Constitution left the slavery question to the States ; that 
Missouri was a slave section and that Congress had nothing to say 
in the matter. So the question grew into a hot and bitter dis- 
pute that at one time even threatened to break up the Union ; 
but at last each side " gave in " a little ; a line was drawn at the 
southern boundary of Missouri ; it was agreed that Missouri should 
be admitted into the Union as a slave State, but that slavery 
should be forever prohibited north of that line — the land occu- 
pied by the new State of Missouri only excepted. This famous 
agreement was known as " the Missouri Compromise," and, under 
it, Missouri was admitted into the Union in 1821 as the twenty- 
fourth State. 

This season of State-making had almost doubled the original " old 
thirteen ;" it had trebled the population. There were in 1821 fully 
ten millions of people in the United States as against the three 
millions that brought the land out of successful revolution in 1783. 
With the exception of the slavery dispute there was but little to 
disturb the peace and prosperity of the land. With the close of the 
War of 1812, business grew brisk again and commerce began to re- 
vive. The farmers readily " moved " their crops; money became 
more plentiful and people speedily forgot the worries of the war- 
days and remembered only the glories. 

In 1816 President Madison was succeeded by James Monroe, of 
Virginia, the nominee of the Republican party. The successful 
ending of the war with Great Britain had destroyed the last rem- 
nant of the old Federalist party which had opposed and hindered 
the carr^dng on of the war. In the election of 1816 the Federalist 
candidates received but thirty-four of the two hundred and twenty- 
one electoral votes ; and in 1820 so satisfied were the people with 
President Monroe and his way of " running things," so contented 
were they with the condition of the country, the prospects of 
business and the steady progress of national growth and wealth 
that this period of American history is often called " the Era of 



168 



ST A TE-MAKING. 



JA.MKS MONROE. 

Fifth president of the United States. 



Good Feeling." Monroe was re-elected president in 1820 almost 
without a dissenting voice. In fact no opposing candidate was 
nominated and when the electoral votes were cast only one was 
given against Monroe, this being thrown so that no president 

save Washington might 
ever be said to have re- 
ceived the unanimous vote. 
One of the measures that 
came out of this " Era 
of Good Feeling," where 
every one was proud to be 
an American and was anx- 
ious to see all America re- 
publican was the statement 
of what has since been 
known as " the Monroe 
Doctrine." The Spanish 
colonies in Central and 
South America, imitating 
the United States, had 
thrown off the Spanish 
yoke and secured their in- 
dependence. But it was 
feared that some of the 
other monarchies of Eu- 
rope would either help 
Spain to conquer her re- 
volted colonies or step in 
themselves and possess the 
land. Americans could not submit to such an interference; and, 
in 1823j President Monroe in the message to Congress which each 
president makes once a year, declared that, while the United 
States had no intention of interfering in any European quarrel 




ST A TE-MAKING. 



16^ 



or war, due notice was given that no more European colonies should 
be planted in America, and that the United States would not 
permit " an attempt by any nation of Europe to reduce an inde- 
pendent nation of North or South America to the condition of a 
colony." It is said that this outspoken language (which has ever 
since been the firm stand of the United States) was placed in the 
president's message by John Quincy Adams, President Monroe's 
Secretary of State and the next succeeding president of the United 
States. 

President James Monroe was the fifth president of the United 
States and the fourth Virginian to fill that high office. A soldier of 
the Revolution and a member of the Continental Congress, he 
was the last of the men of the Revolution to be elected president. 
He was the third president to die on the Fourth of July. Two of 
those who preceded him, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died 
within a few hours of each other on the Fourth of July, 1826 — the 
fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, on which paper both their names appear. Monroe died on the 
Fourth of July, 1831. He was sometimes called the " Last Cocked 
Hat," as he was the last of the Revolutionary Presidents and one 
of the last Americans to wear the quaint old cocked hat of that 
glorious period. 




170 



CITIZENS AND FAliTIES. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 




'f((X^f<^ 



HE '' Era of Good Feeling " of course could not long con- 
tinue. Opposition is really necessary to progress and 
growth, as, if we all thought alike, there would be no one 
to push things ahead. 

So when the time for a new election came around, to- 
ward the close of President Monroe's second term, the era of good 
feelino- became almost an era of confusion, because people were not 
united as to just who they wished to select as their new president. 
Everybody w^as " Republican," but their choice was by no means 
the same. At last, four candidates were decided upon. These 
were : John Quincy Adams, who had been Monroe's Secretary of 
State, Andrew Jackson, '• the 
hero of New Orleans," Wil- 
liam H. Crawford, who had 
been secretary of the treas- 
ury, and Henry Clay, the 
" great Kentuckian," speaker 
of the House of Representa- 
tives. So many candidates, 
as elections were then carried 
on, split up the electoral vote 
completely ; no one candi- 
date had a majority — that 
is, a large enough proportion 
of the entire electoral vote — 
and the matter had to o-o for 




ASHLAND, THE HOJIE OF HENRY CLAY- 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 171 

decision to the House of Representatives. There, only the three 
highest names were voted upon ; the friends of Henry Clay cast 
their votes for John Quincy Adams and he was, accordingly, de- 
clared elected. This confusing election was at that time called 
" the scrub-race for the presidency," and a " scrub-race," you know, 
is a race between " scrubs " — that is, untrained and unpracticed 
horses, boys or men. 

There was, of course, a good deal of " back-talk " and hard feel- 
ings over so mixed a contest ; and, as a result, new parties were 
formed. At first they called themselves " Adams men," or "Jack- 
son men." Then the Democrat-Republican party which had started 
in Jefferson's time took to itself the name of the Democratic Party, 
by which it has ever since been known, and its opponents called 
themselves, first, National-Republicans and afterwards Whigs. 

John Quincy Adams was the son of a president — stout old John 
Adams, the champion of Revolution and the successor of Washington 
as President of the United States. Like his father, John Quincy 
Adams was able, honest, uncompromising, independent and firm. 
His administration was a success ; money was plenty and the people 
were prosperous, but the president's firmness as to his own opinions 
and his unwillingness to "give in" to the plans of others made 
for him many enemies — especially among politicians, who, as a 
rule, are quick haters. So, like his father, he was defeated when 
nominated for a second term as president ; but, with the good of his 
country at heart, he went into congress again as a member of the 
House of Representatives from Massachusetts and there had a re- 
markable career of seventeen years — the stout and merciless op- 
ponent of whatever seemed to him unjust, tyrannical or wrong. 
He was known both to friends and foes as the " Old Man Elo- 
quent " ; of him it was said that he actually " died in harness," 
for in the Capitol at Washington is still pointed out the spot 
where he fell, stricken down by paralysis in February, 1848, while 
attending the debates of Congress. And in the Capitol lit died 



172 CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 

It was during the administration of John Quincy Adams that two 
important questions arose, impelHng people to much heated and 
wordy discussion. These were the Tariff and Internal Improve- 
ments. They were what the people of that day called " burning ques- 
tions" and one of them — the Tariff — has not got through " burn- 
ing " yet, in 1891. The tariff — which, by the way, is an old, old 
question and comes away back from the Arabic verb arafa, to 
inform — was originally a system of payments demanded by a 
government on the goods sent away from or sent into its bor- 
ders. In Great Britain and America this system of payments or 
" duties " is demanded only on goods brought in from foreign 
countries — " imports," as they are called. Early in the history 
of the United States this question of the tariff led to a differ- 
ence of opinion. Some people thought that American industries 
would prosper only by " protection " — that is, by placing a high 
tariff or duty on the same things that came in from other coun- 
tries so that Americans could only afford to buy American-made 
goods or products. Other people held that this was unjust — that 
Americans ought to be allowed to buy the best they can get, 
whether it was of American or foreign production and if Ameri- 
can manufacturers wished American trade they must simply make 
the best goods ; these people held that the tariff should affect the 
things imported into America only so far as to help raise the money 
needed to carry on the government ; this is what is still called " a 
tariff for revenue only." High tariff, or protection, was advocated 
by presidents Monroe and Adams ; the money thus obtained was to 
be expended by the government upon making roads and canals and 
dredging harbors. This was called Internal Improvements and the 
tariff and internal improvements, together, made up what was known 
as the "American System." 

But many people did not believe in this protection or the 
" American System," as it was called. Especially in the South was 
it disliked. There the people were farmers and not manufacturers, 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 



173 



,v^v!;'i 




DISCUSSING THE TARIFF IN 1828. 



and they objected to paying high prices on foreign goods simply, so 
they claimed, to "protect" the Northern manufacturer. During 
President Adams' term, in 1828, the tariff was still further increased 
and the South declared that this act was contrary to the Constitu- 
tion. This question of the tariff really split the old Republican 



174 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 



party in two and was the origin of the later opposing parties — the 
Democrats and the Whigs. 

The question of Internal Improvements was however settled for- 
ever by the coming of the railroad, the telegraph and the other 
wonderful things that were speedily to take the place of post road>f 
and canals ; for, being carried on by private enterprise and not by 
Government, these new " improvements " took away the need of 

paying out the Government's money for 
such purposes. 

For these inventions were to bring* 
about immense changes alike in the lives, 
the habits and the characters of the peo- 
ple. Up to 1825 the citizens of the United 
States had been satisfied to live in the ways 
of their fathers. They went from place 
to place over poor roads, afoot or on horse- 
back, in clumsy wagon, lumbering stage- 
coach or heavy carriage. Goods and 
freight passed slowly from city to city 
on sailing vessel, lazj'' flat-boat or creak- 
ing wagon, and one of the chief obstacles 
to the rapid development of the western country was to be found 
in the length of time, the labor, the risks and the expense of 
getting from one point to another. 

Fulton's invention and the first steamboats to which it led partly 
solved this question, for it made travel upon ocean, lake and river 
quicker and easier. But still it took too much time and trouble to 
get from the seashore to the lakes and rivers of the west. Enter- 
prise, however, has ever been one of the chief points in the Ameri- 
can character, and enterprise soon solved this problem. A public 
spirited and popular American statesman, De Witt Clinton, gov- 
ernor of New York, advocated, worked for, and finally secured the 
construction of a great canal that should join the lakes to tJ'e sea 




A WESTERN KI.AT-BOAT. 




JOIIX QUINCY ADAMS. 

Sixth president of the United States. 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 



177 



by stretching across New York State from the Hudson River to 
Lake Erie. This " big ditch," as some people called it, was eight 
years in building and was opened to the public on the fourth of 
November, 1825, when Governor Clinton, having sailed its entire 
length from Buffalo to Sandy Hook — a nine days' trip — poured 
into the Atlantic from a gilded keg the water from Lake Erie 
and declared the great canal "open." The act was significant. 
It marked a new day of American progress and, by establishing a 
direct and easy trade communication with the West, it made New 
York the metropolis of America. 

About the same time a great " National Road " for inland com- 
munication was laid out and constructed. It stretched from Mary- 
land to Indiana and was intended for wag-on 
travel. It was a wise piece of work and would 
have been a great and most important one 
had not the railroad soon come in to conquer 
distance and to get the best of time. 

In 1828 the new parties had their first strong 
grapple. Adams was overthrown and Andrew 
Jackson of Tennessee was elected president. 
New ideas were taking the place of old ones ; 
the approach of a certain overturn in life and 
manners was " in the air," and as Mr. Johnston 
says, " the government was changed because 
the people had changed." 

Jackson's own story was proof of this. He 
was what is called a " self-made man." He was 
the first president to come directly from the ranks of " the peo- 
ple." The son of a poor North Carolina borderer, he was born 
into the very air of rebellion to tyranny and early imbibed a love 
of liberty. The boy of fourteen who dared to refuse to black the 
boots of his British captor was the same unyielding patriot who, 
behind his crazy earthworks at New Orleans, grimly awaited that 




DE WITT CLINTON. 



178 



CITIZENS AND PARTIES. 



splendid British advance that he was to crush and hurl back into 
defeat, the same loyal American who, when the South Carolina 
" nullifiers " of 1832 threatened insurrection, could burst out hotly : 




TIIK RAILWAY COACH OF OUR GRAXDFATIIKRS. 

" By the Eternal ! the Union must and shall be preserved. Send 
for General Scott ! " 

The country was wonderfully prosperous when Jackson came 
into office in 1829. The census of 1830 showed a population of 
nearly thirteen millions ; East and West were alike growing rapidly 
in wealth and numbers ; manufactures were increasing ; new indus- 



CITIZEN i^ AND PARTIES. 



179 



WK 



tries were springing up ; there were eighty-five hundred post-offices 
m the country, and the sale of its western lands to the new settlers 
brought into the national treasury fully twenty-five millions of dol- 
lars a year. 

Before the close of Jackson's first administration the locomotive 
engine of Stephenson had been introduced into America and Yankee 
ingenuity was quick to adapt the idea to the needs of the land. 
The first passenger train in America was run on the Baltimore and 
Ohio railroad in 1830; the first successful American locomotive 
was built in 1833 ; before 1835 nineteen rail- 
roads were being built or were in operation, 
and before 1837 fifteen hundred miles of rail- 
way were in use in the land. 

The railroad changed every thing. Quicker 
communication meant a busier and more pro- 
ductive life for the nation ; and this quickly 
came. Steamships began to cross and re-cross 
the ocean ; gas was introduced in cities to take 
the place of lamp and candle ; the reaping 
machine hastened and enlarged farm work ; 
coal was used as fuel ; the revolving pistol 
did away with the old style of fire-arms ; fric- 
tion matches took the place of flint and steel ; 
Morse was feeling his way toward the tele- 
graph ; education, books and newspapers were 
increasing and improving everywhere, and the 
United States of America seemed on the highroad to an unexampled 
prosperity. 



Co bUet-, 




ISO 



CHANGING DAYS, 



CHAPTER XX. 



CHANGING DAYS. 




F President Jackson's administration was the threshold of 
chano-e in American life and manners, politics and popula- 
tion it also led men and women into a broader room for 
action and advancement. The railroad and the telegraph 
were not the only improvements that widened American 

influence. The arm of the Yankee had thus far been stout to 

chop and hew, to clear and build, to drain and dig; but new 

cities were growing; new neighborhoods were forming; people 

were coming closer together, as 

canal and railroad took the place 

of stage and saddle ; men began 

to think, to desire, to invent; 

the brain of the Yankee was 

now to help the arm. 

A new era in American think- 
ing dates from "the thirties." 

The contemptuous query of the 

famous English critic, Sydney 

Smith: "Who ever reads an 

American book?" was soon to 

be answered : " The world." 

For, following the work of 

Irving and Cooper, of Bryant 

and Halleck and Drake, of Noah 

Webster and Lindley Murray, 

of Wilson and Audubon, came, Washington irving. 




CHANGING BAYS. 



181 



soon after 1830, the first works of our modern American writers 
— the poems of Whittier, Longfellow and Holmes, the romances 
of Hawthorne, the historical work of Bancroft and Prescott, the 
tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Then, too, the greatest of 
American orators — Daniel Web- 
ster and Henry Clay — were in 
their prime, stirring their fellow- 
men by their power and their elo- 
quence, while, among lawyers, 
the Americans Marshall, Kent 
and Story were not surpassed 
on either side of the Atlantic. 

As men began to think their 
consciences were aroused to ques- 
tion the worth of everything 
that was degrading or hurtful to 
their fellowmen. Drunkenness, 
common to all America, the 
neglect of convicts in the pris- 
ons, and negro slavery, debas- 
ing both to master and man, 
were attacked by those earnest 
men and women that we now 
call " reformers," but who were 
then called '• fanatics," and the 
way toward real American lib- 
erty was widened by these pioneers of virtue. From that time, 
too (the days of President Jackson), dates the public school — 
that system of free education that has been the uplifting and 
strengthenins; of America. 

As the railroads ran deeper into the land, settlement reached out 
still further into the new sections; the " frontier " shifted almost 
with each 3'ear, and the pathfinder and the emigrant made more 




U. 7€o^ c^ 



c^ryf oT^ 



C\ 



0(J/ 



182 



CHANGING DAYS. 



and yet more roadways for civilization. In " the thirties " were 
incorporated such new cities as Butt'alo, Chicago, Cleveland, Colum- 
bus, Memphis, Rochester and Toledo — centers of a growing trade 
that, before the coming of canal or railroad, had been but frontier 
posts, hard to reach and seemingly scarce worth settling. On the 
rolling prairie, by the shore of the great lakes or on the banks of 
some flowing western river the log cabin of the pioneer and the 
rough clearing of the settler showed the beginnings of a new 

home ; the traveling schoolmaster 
carried his knowledge from district 
to district ; the cross-roads store or 
tavern was the meeting place for 
discussion, and the exchange of 
new s and opinions ; the circuit- 
rider or traveling minister, counted 
his congregation not by numbers 
but by miles as, jogging along from 
|)lace to place, he carried in his 
saddle-bags his theological library 
— his Bible and hymn book, " Pil- 
grim's Progress " and "' Paradise 
Lost " — and stopped to preach, to 
talk, to marry or to bury, as his 
services were needed ; up and down 
the tow path of an Ohio canal 
trudged a little fellow who, in after 
years, was to be general, college 
professor and president of the 
United States ; and, typical of Western advance, in 1833 there was 
no Chicago — in 1839 it was a flourishing town wdth splendid 
steamers running to its docks and with its store of merchandise 
going south, west and north. 

The administration of Jackson was an exciting time ; besides the 




daxii:l wEBSTicn. 



CHANGING DAYS. 



183 



cTre^vellincr 
cJchoolTTvsfet 



new movements in thonght and life that were making " the thirties " 
a time of changing days, the poUtical questions and official acts, 
that came to disturb men's minds and rouse them to fervid support 
or violent opposition, were many, Jackson was a man of strong 
opinions, likes and dislikes ; absolutely honest and with an unfalter- 
ing will he loved his friends and hated his foes ; his administration 
was a strong one and by its firmness made the country respected 
abroad ; but it was filled with political quarrels and party strifes ; 
people in office who opposed the president were ruthlessly turned 
out to make room for his friends and supporters and a New York 
senator, defending the president's system 
of removals made the insolent announce- 
ment that has since grown famous : "to 
the victor belong the spoils." In the 
forty years between Washington and Jack- 
son there had been but seventy-four re- 
movals from office ; durino; the first vear 
of Jackson's administration two thousand 
office holders were " turned out " to make 
room for the president's " supporters." 

For years the money that belonged to 
the United States had been deposited in what was known as the 
United States Bank. President Jackson believed that this was not 
so beneficial to the people as if the money was scattered around 
among the banks in the different States. So he made war on the 
United States Bank and finally destroyed it. 

Jackson also objected strongly to the " American system," of 
which I told you in the last chapter. The Government, he said, 
had no right to tax the people for making roads, digging canals and 
dredging harbors. So he declared war on " internal improvements " 
and again came out victorious. 

Jackson, too, believed in the government of the United States. 
It was, he claimed, the one authority to which all the States must 




184 



CHANGING DAYS. 




ANDREW JACKSON. 

Seventh president of ttie United States. 



give obedience. Some of the Southern leaders, especially John C. 
Calhoun of South Carolina, believed that the States were superior to 
the general government and were at liberty to stay in the Union or 
go out of it as they chose. He believed, also, that if Congress 
made a law that was objectionable to any State, that State had the 
right to refuse to obey it ; in other words, it could " nullify " or 



CHANGING DAYS. 185 

make of no avail an act of Congress. In 1832, South Carolina took 
this step, declaring the tariff law of Congress " null and void " and 
prepared to resist its enforcement. President Jackson acted 
promptly.* He warned South Carolina that she must obey the law ; 
he prepared to force the State to submit and he would certainly 
have done so had not South Carolina yielded to the president. 

So many stormy scenes must, of course, have made strong friends 
and bitter foes for the stern soldier-president — " Old Hickory," his 
friends loved to call him. When the time for the new election 
came, in 1832, party differences ran hot and high ; but Jackson was 
too firmly fixed in the hearts of the people, who admire pluck and 
courage joined to honesty and firmness, and the president received 
two hundred and nineteen out of the two hundred and eighty-eight 
electoral votes and entered upon his second term. But, though de- 
feated, the anti-Jackson men clung to their principles. They called 
themselves Whigs, because the Whigs among their English ances- 
tors had been those who resisted tyranny and they held that Presi- 
dent Jackson was a tyrant. So the voters of the land were divided 
into Jackson men and anti-Jackson men — into Democrats and 
Whigs. The Democrats opposed the United States Bank ; the 
Whigs desired its re-establishment. The Democrats opposed taxing 
the people for " internal improvements ; " the Whigs wished the 
government to foster these and pay for them by taxation. The 
Democrats were believers in the rights of the States ; the Whigs 
said the General Government should be the supreme power. 

When President Jackson's second term drew to a close he de- 
clined a renomination and retired to his Tennessee farm, the only 
president, so it has been said, who "went out of office far more 
popular than he was when he entered." 

But if he was popular with the masses, he had bitter enemies. 
The Whigs did their best to elect an anti-Jackson man ; but their 

* President Jackson was really a believer in the " States-rights " theory; but he was president of the whole 
Union and was brave enough to do his duty as president. 



186 



CHANGING DAYS. 



councils were divided ; different leaders among them had tlieii' 
strong partisans, and in the confusion into which their stubbornness 
threw them they made no nomination and President Jackson's 
choice, Martin Van Buren of New York, was elected president, re- 
ceiving one hundred and seventy electoral votes. 

President Van Buren had been the strong and unfaltering sup- 
porter of Jackson, whose Secretary 
of State he had been for two years. 
But Jackson's good fortune did not 
follow his successor. The jDrosperity 
of the countr}^ had led people into 
unsafe and unwise speculations. Out 
of the fight which ended in the over- 
throw of the United States bank had 
come the formation throughout the 
country of small and unreliable banks 
which lent money and issued their 
own bills, and traded in public lands. 
When forced to meet the bills they 
had issued they had not gold and 
silver enough to pay them and, " fail- 
ing," let the loss fall on the people. 
These irresponsible institutions were 
called ''wild-cat banks" and their 
methods brought much distress on 
the country. Too late for the pub- 
lic safety the Government interfered 
and only made things worse by refusing to receive the notes of 
any banks. Business was thrown into confusion ; prices fell ; crops 
were poor ; workmen lost their places and, in 1837, came the 
crash. " The Panic of 1837," as this time of disaster was called, 
affected the whole country ; rich men became poor ; bank notes 
were good for nothing ; distress and ruin threatened many homes; 




INIAiniX VAN BUUKN. 

Eighth president of tilt United States 



C RANGING DAYS. 



187 



the United States government itself suffered in revenue ; the State 
governments that had been drawn into the trouble " repudiated " 
— that is, refused to pay — their debts and every thing was in 
confusion. A special session of Congress was called and after 
much discussion the trouble 
was ended by the establish- 
ment of what are known 
as sub-treasuries in which 
the money of the govern- 
ment has ever since been 
kept above the risk of 
bank failures. 

A country with the re- 
sources and opportunities 
of the United States could 
not long be set back by 
such a disaster as was the 
*' panic of '37." Business 
was conducted upon a safer 
basis, people took up the 
work again at bench and 
plough and desk, resolved 
to deal squarely and honest- 
ly with one another and 
trade soon revived. 

But President Van Bu- 
ren was not forgiven the 
disaster that was really no 
fault of his. People, iiow- 
ever, are apt to blame the man at the helm when the ship goes 
towai-d the rocks and Van Buren, they said, was an unsafe pilot. 
At all events a change, they declared, would be a good thincr, 
and so, in 1840, after a campaign that was full of enthusiasm from 




WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 

Ninth president of the United States. 



188 



CHANGING DAYS. 



one end of the land to the other, General William Henry Harri- 
son, the '• hero of Tippecanoe," was elected president. It was a 
complete overturn in politics. The Democrats were defeated. 
The Whigs secured for their candidate two hundred and thirty- 
four out of the two hundred and ninety-four electoral votes and 
amid the most unbounded rejoicings, William Henry Harrison was 

inaugurated as the ninth president 
of the United States. 

The rejoicing, however, was 
short lived. Within a month from 
his inauguration President Harri- 
son died suddenly, and, in accord- 
ance with the Constitution, the 
Vice-President, John Tyler of Vir- 
ginia, succeeded to the vacant 
chair as president. 

The succession proved disas- 
trous to the Whigs. Tyler was 
not in sympathy with the party 
that had elected him ; he had 
been nominated " to draw the 
Southern vote " and before he had 
been long in office he showed that 
his sympathies were really against 
the Whigs. 

Politics " tumbled" again. Par- 
ties were divided and the very men who in 1840 had gone about 
in procession and parade singing out the party chorus : 




JOHN TYLEK. 



Tenth president of the United Slates. 



" We'll hurl little Van from his station 
And elevate Tippecanoe," 



now were sorry enough at what they had done and were hot and 
bitter against the president they had placed in power. One of their 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 189 

party cries had been " Tippecanoe and Tyler, too ! " They had got 
" Tyler, too," now and still they were not happy. 

In 1840 the population of the United States had grown to over 
seventeen millions. Two new States, Arkansas and Michigan, had 
been admitted to the Union and the '* old thirteen " were now 
twenty-six. A treaty with Grer/: Britain in 1842 pledged each 
country to send back for trial any criminal who had escaped from 
justice ; it also settled the northern boundary of the United States, 
which in 1839 had almost brought on a war between Maine and 
New Brunswick. In 1837 Samuel F. B. Morse took out a patent 
for his electric telegraph, and in 1844 the first telegraph line was 
constructed, connecting Baltimore and Washington. 



— :=^ 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SHADOW OP DISCORD. 

HE greatest man of this nineteenth century — Abraham 
Lincoln the American — said, years ago : " I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently- half slave and 
half free." What had gone before, what followed later, 
alike were proofs of this. When Pinzon the Spaniard 
brouofht his neg-ro slaves into Cuba in 1508 ; when the Dutch sea- 
captain ran the first cargo of stolen Africans into the James River 
in 1619; when Eli Whitney made cotton the "king" by his dis- 
astrous invention of the cotton-gin in 1793; — and when, on the 
other hand, the Pilgrims of the Mayflower landed at Plymouth in 
1620 ; when the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the 
equality of all men in 1776; when the stream of emigration bore 




190 THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 

the love of liberty into western wilderness and prairie, the causes 
that led to what one statesman declared to be " an irrepressible con- 
flict" were established. 

When two boys who have been companions and bosom-friends 
from infancy "get mad" with one another — as boys (and girls, 
too), sometimes will — the trouble grows greater as the cause of 
the first pout or the first hasty word is dwelt upon and made to 
lead to others. It was so with the two sections of the American 
Union. Almost from the start they disagreed as to the extension 
of negro slavery ; across that imaginary boundary, which the sur- 
veyors appointed by William Penn and Lord Baltimore drew in 
1763, and which has ever since been known as " Mason and Dixon's 
line," the pout and shrug and hasty word were flung; the question 
as to which had the most " right," which was " sovereign," the 
State or the nation, was argued, discussed and quarreled over ; 
minor questions as to just what the constitution meant when it said 
this or that, and numerous differences of opinion on matters of na- 
tional or sectional importance caused the boy at the south of Mason 
and Dixon's line to say harsh words to the boy at the north ; and 
the boy at the north, though too often willing to "give in " if only 
he could keep on unmolested at his work of accumulating, some- 
times flung back harsh words in reply to the boy at the south ; and 
so, little by little, the shadow of discord grew broader and blacker 
o.nd matters slowly ripened for a real " getting mad " between these 
two close comrades and fast friends. 

In 1844 the United States of America were at peace with the 
world ; apparently they were at peace among themselves. With 
the exception of certain local quarrels such as that in regard to 
who should vote in the State of Rhode Island (which led to what is 
known as the " Dorr Rebellion " of 1844) and as to who should pay 
rent for the land in New York (which led to "the Anti-rent War" 
of 1844) there was nothing to disturb people or lead their thoughts 
away from successful farming or manufacturing or money-getting. 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 



191 



But in 1844, Texas asked to come into the United States ; and this 
brought about a renewal of the angry talk, while the shadow of 
discord grew denser. 

Texas (from the old Indian word lelias or tejas, "friends") was a 
part of old Mexico. But when Mexico revolted from Spanish rule 
and set up as a republic, many Americans, w^io had settled in its 







ANTI-KliXTKKS, DISGUISED AS INDIAN'S, AMBlSlIINti THE SHEKIEF 



northern section, were led into disputes with the new republic as to 
the ownership of the land ; the Mexican government was unjust 
and ugly in its decisions, and the American element in Northern 
Mexico forced that section into revolt in 1835. Under the lead of 
a gallant fighter, known as General Sam Houston, the Republic of 



192 THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 

Texas was proclaimed. The new republic was a vast territory larger 
than all of France, and when in 1844 it expressed a desire to join 
the great northern republic as one of the United States the Southern 
States rejoiced exceedingly, for this would bring on great increase 
of power to the slave States ; on the other hand the North opposed 
such an action both as giving too much power to the slave States 
and as a breach of friendship with Mexico, which had not yet ac- 
knowledged the independence of Texas. 

But the Southern leaders were determined to have Texas if they 
could. The presidential election of 1844 turned on the question of its 
annexation ; Henry Clay, the Whig candidate for president, was not 
sufficiently emphatic in his objection to the " Texas scheme " to 
please a certain section of the anti-slavery men at the North who 
called themselves the Liberty party; their hostility lost Clay the 
State of New York, and the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, 
was elected president by a vote of one hundred and seventy of the 
two hundred and seventy-five electoral votes. 

Of course Texas was annexed ; and in December, 1845, she was 
admitted to the Union. Florida came in just before her, in March, 

1845, and it so happened that the vast southwestern commonwealth 
was the last slave State to be admitted to the Union. For from that 
day the shadow of discord grew heavier and blacker. 

President Polk's administration witnessed many signs of prog- 
ress in the land. In 1846, Elias Howe invented the sewing-machine ; 
in 1847, Richard M. Hoe invented his cylinder printing press ; in 

1846, Dr. Morton discovered the use of ether, and thus were house- 
hold labor, the spreading of news and the bearing of pain made 
lio-hter and easier. 

But the administration of President Polk also plunged the country 
into war. It presented also the example of the strong punishing 
the weak — never a pleasant spectacle and one that is apt to lead to 
the question with which so many boys are familiar : " Say, why 
don't you take one of your size?" For in May, 1846, the re- 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD, 



193 



public of the United States declared war against the repubKc of 

Mexico. 

To be sure Mexico was ugly and quarrelsome. She held a grudge 

against the United States for helping and taking Texas ; she owed 

American citizens money and refused to pay her debts ; she o-rowled 

in most emphatic Spanish about the boundary lines the United States 

demanded ; she threatened all sorts 

of things. But it was largely talk. 

Mexico had no wish to fight the 

United States ; she was ready to 

consider a peaceful settling of the 

matter ; but, all too hastily, in April, 

1846, President Polk ordered General 

Zachary Taylor to take possession of 

the disputed strip of land on the 
boundary ; there was a meeting bt 
tween American and Mexican sol 
diers; shots were fired; men weu 
killed, and the war was begun. 

It was not difficult at the outs( t 
to tell what the end would be. 
Mexico was torn by quarrels and 
feuds ; her soldiers were untrained ; 
her war materials poor ; her treas- 
ury almost empty ; her leaders ig- 
norant and inefficient. The United 
States troops were well officered and maneuvered, and though the 
Mexican soldiers were brave fighters and repeatedly outnumbered 
the Americans — sometimes five to one ^ the superiority of Ameri- 
can drill and American leadership always won the day. From first 
to fast the war was a series of victories and, though we question the 
justice of the quarrel and deplore the quite unnecessary fight, we 
cannot but swing our caps over the pluck, the persistence and the 




JAiAIES K. POLK. 

Eleventh president of the United States. 



194 THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 

valor of the American soldiers and their leaders. In a liostile and 
unknown land, against the odds of heavier numbers, stubborn resist- 
ance, miserable roads, lack of supplies and an unhealthy country, the 
American soldiers fought their way to victor}* and made the names of 
Palo Alto and Buena Vista, of Cerro Gordo and Contreras, of Clieru- 
busco and Chapultepec glorious in the annals of bravery, while the 
names of such generals as Taylor and Kearney, Scott and AVorth do 
but lead the roll of the daring and heroic men who followed them 
to the end. 

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which put an end to this two 
years' war, the territory of the United States was greatly increased. 
The immense section now occupied by Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, 
Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California, nearly a million square miles 
in extent, was added to the republic ; fifteen millions of dollars were 
paid to Mexico for the territory thus given up ; peace was declared 
and the victorious Americans returned to their homes in the North. 

But if the war had been an unjust one on the part of the United 
States, it brought about trouble enough in the end and deepened 
the shadow of discord into a dense and overlian<>:ino: cloud. At 
once, after the new territory had been secured, the South demanded 
that it be made slave soil; the North as strongly objected and de- 
manded that slavery should be therein forbidden. Again it looked 
;is if the boy at the south and the boy at the north of Mason and 
Dixon's line would come to blows ; but they decided finally to leave 
the question to those who should settle on the new lands, and thus 
an uncertain condition of affairs was brought about. This, because 
it was in the hands of those who hurriedly settled (or ''squatted") 
on the vacant lands, was known as " squatter sovereignty," and the 
black looks across the line still continued. 

In 1848, General Zachary Taylor, " the hero of Buena Vista," was 
elected president of the United States. There was a feeling through- 
out the countr}^ that '' old Rough and Ready," as he was called, had 
not been well-treated by the Government during the v-ar, and the 



■'., SP" 




-^1^^%^ 






AT BUENA VISTA. 

" TJie American soldiers foxight their loay tc victory. 



^A 



THE SHADOW OF DISC OBI). 



197 



opponents of the party in power eagerly took him as their candidate. 
The result was a victory for the Whigs, but their soldier-president 
did not long survive his last victory, for he died after only a year 
and four months of office. The vice-president, Millard Fillmore, 
succeeded to the vacant 
chair and found himself 
confronted by important 
questions. 






In 1846, the long-stand- 







ing dispute with England 
as to the northern boundary 
of the United States ended 
in a treaty which gave to 
the United States all the 
country south of that de- 
gree of latitude marked on 
the maps as forty-nine. 
The United States held out 
some time for possession as 
far as fifty-four degrees and 
forty minutes north lati- 
tude, and some were even 
ready to go to war over 
it, with their battle-cry 
of " Fifty-four Forty or 
Fight ! " but better councils 
prevailed and the treaty 
of 1844 settled the dispute. 
The United States now 
owned the Pacific coast from the head of the Gulf of California to 
the shores of Puget Sound. It was a noble empire, but little Avas 
known of it in the East, save as the land of Indians, fur-traders 
and cattle-raisers. But suddenly, in 1849, came the news ; " There 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 

Twelfth president of the United States. 



198 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 



is gold in California ! " The precious metal had been discovered in 
the Sacramento River count rv ; it was said that no such gold mines had 
ever before been found and at once there was a great rush to '' the 
diggings." The news spread ; the " finds "proved richer and richer; 

the rush to the Pacific broke into a 
regular " gold fever " that attacked 
the world; all classes caught it; around 
" the Horn," across the isthmus, over 
the plains the gold seekers hurried, 
and into the old half-Spanish quiet 
of California came the excitement, 
the fever, the haste, the selfishness, 
the greed and the danger that alwavs 
accompany the mad race for wealth. 
Within two years a hundred thou- 
sand people had gone into California: 
San Francisco grew into a city of 
twenty thousand inhabitants and. wher- 
ever gold was found, there men risked 
all for fortune ; but while some ob- 
tained the prize they sought, many 
others foimd only failure, loss, ruin 
and death. 

But the majority of the gold hunters 
of '49, though absorbed in their 
search for wealth, were still Americans ; they soon realized the 
need of a strong government and some higher authority than the 
self-appointed " committees " of cabin, camp and settlement. In 
1849, they set up a state government of their own and asked for 
admittance into the Union. Then there was trouble at once. The 
constitution of the newly-formed State prohibited slavery ; part of 
its territor}^ lay south of the line marked out at the time of the 
Missouri Compromise, and the South demanded that slaverv be 




MILLAUD FILLMOUE. 

Thirteejith president of the United States. 



THE SHADOW OF D IS COED. 



199 



allowed in the new State. Other troubles arose. Texas claimed a 
part of New Mexico, which had been ceded to the United States ; 
the South demanded that its runaway slaves who escaped to the 
North should be returned to their masters; the North demanded 
that the buying and selling of negro slaves in the capital of the 
nation be stopped. 

So the shadow was growing denser, when Henry Clay endeavored 
to suggest a "compromise" that should "fix things" all right. 
This was called the " Omnibus Bill" 
or the " Compromise of 1850," be- 
cause it undertook to settle all the 
disputes, and to hold, as does an omni- 
bus, all that can be crowded into it. 
By this compromise it was agreed to 
admit California into the Union with- 
out slavery ; the buying and sell- 
ing of slaves were to be prohibited 
in the District of Columbia, but 
slavery itself was not prohibited 
there ; ten million dollars were paid 
Texas to give up her claim to New 
Mexico ; in the territories formed of 
the new lands slavery was neither 
forbidden nor allowed, and a Fugitive 
Slave Law was passed. 

But the " Compromise of 1850" did 
not settle things. There was, es- 
pecially, a fierce opposition to the Fourteenth president of the Umted states. 

Fugitive Slave Law which made the United States officers slave- 
catchers. But when the election of 1852 came around the opposition 
was divided. The Southern Whiu:s and the Northern Whio-s had a 
falling out ; the Liberty party now calling itself the Free-soil party, 
denounced the Fugitive Slave Law ; a good many men refused to 




CLix riEHCi; 



200 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 



vote at all because they did not like any of the things offered 
them, and Franklin Pierce, the Democratic candidate, was elected 
president with two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes. 

Then came four 3'ears more of talk and trouble. Anti-slavery 
feeling grew in the North ; the boastings about the supreme rights 
of the States increased in the South. In 1854 the new territories 

of Kansas and Nebraska, west of 
the Missouri River, were set ajiart, 
and the question of the admission of 
slavery therein was left to the de- 
cision of the settlers themselves — 
a case of " squatter's sovereignty " 
again. 

When this measure, known as 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, was in- 
troduced into Congress, there was 
a great stir. By the Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820 which, you remem- 
ber, prohibited slavery north of the 
southern boundary of Missouri, the 
new territories by right were to be 
forever " free soil." But the leaders 
of the majority in Congress, to gain 
their purpose, voted to repeal the 
Missouri Compromise and to let the 
people who entered the new terri- 
tory make it slave or free as they preferred. 

This led to a terrible time. People poured into the new territo- 
ries. The free-state people and the slave-state people alike sought 
to obtain the mastery ; there were mobs and fightings and feuds of 
the most bitter and bloody kind. But the free-soil people at last 
prevailed and in the very heat of the struggle came the electiop 
of 1856. 




JAMES BUCHANAN 

Fifteenth president of the Uniled States. 



THE SHADOW OF DISCORD. 201 

By this time the Whig party was broken in pieces. Out of it 
3ame those who opposed the stupid repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise, who objected to the Fugitive Slave Law and who sided with 
the free-state people in the Kansas trouble. These joined with the 
Free-soil party and formed what has ever since been known as the 
Republican party. They selected as their candidate for president, 
Colonel John C. Fremont, " the Pathfinder," who had blazed a path 
I across the Rocky Mountains, conquered California and led the way 
I westward for settlement and civilization. The Democrats nominated 
James Buchanan of Pennsylvania who had been President Polk's 
Secretary of State ; while a third party, which opposed giving place 
or office to foreigners, and which was called the American or " Know 
Nothing" party re-nominated President Fillmore. The struggle 
was bitter ; but Buchanan was elected president by one hundred 
and seventy-four of the two hundred and ninety-six electoral votes. 
Fremont, however, carried nearly all the free States with an electoral 
vote of one hundred and fourteen, and when the South saw this 
sure and steady growth of anti-slavery feeling, her leaders realized 
that their power was slipping away and the shadow of discord, now 
grown into the blackest of clouds, seemed ready to burst upon the 
heads of the people. • 



,.»e^=%^ 



202 



FOR UNION, 



CHAPTER XXII. 



FOR UXIOX. 





I 




•-o y 



X 1860, in spite of the increasing danger of their political 
troubles, the United States of America were wonderfully 
prosperous. Population had grown to more than thirty- 
one millions ; the roll of States now numbered thirty-three 
— Iowa having been admitted to the Union in 1846, Wis- 
consin in 1848, California in 1850, Minnesota in 1858 and Oregon 
in 1859 ; there were over thirty thousand miles of railroad in opera- 
tion and thousands of miles of telegraph ; American commerce 
occupied the second place in the world ; American agriculture stood 
first ; coal and gold, silver and copper were dis- 
covered in productive mines, and in Penn- '■^ 
sylvania the finding of petroleum beds in 1859, 
led to almost as much excitement as the dis- 
covery of gold in California ten years before. 
The public schools now numbered over a hun- 
dred thousand, while four hundred colleges 
cared for the advanced education of the young. 
Machinery was finding entrance into almost 
every occupation of life, from farming to shoe 
making and sugar refining ; the cities were 
improving alike in size and in comforts ; the 
police and fire departments were organized into 
almost military discipline ; the laying of a tel- ^ 
egraph line beneath the ocean to England was 
attempted in 1857, and the United States were believed to be worth 
in property and money fully sixteen billions of dollars. 




FOR UNION. 



203 



But money is not everything in the upbuilding of a nation. 
Principle and character are of first importance. Beneath all this 
prosperity were dissatisfaction and discord. The advance in wealth 
and facilities had been confined to the North ; in this great pros- 
perity the South did not seem to be a sharer. A few wise ones at 
the South saw that this condition was due to slavery ; but the 
people had not yet learned that slave labor can never build a suc- 
cessful State, and they tried all the harder to win in a losing fight. 




DINAH morris's CERTIFICATE OF FREEDOM. 



In the North since first in 1777, Dinah Morris, the Vermont slave, 
was given her "freedom papers," slavery had dwindled and died 
away ; in the South it had grown steadily. In the North everybody 
had to work to live ; in the South work was considered as " low ; " 
and so there came to be, at the South, three classes — the rich 
whites, the poor whites and the negro slaves. 

The free States were growing in the North ; there was but little 



204 FOR LWION^. 

chance for the introduction of slavery in the new Territories ; the 
plan to purchase Cuba had fallen through ; the slave power in Congress 
was fast being outnumbered by the free-soil supporters ; the three 
hinidred and fifty thousand slaveholders of the South saw that they 
would soon be no match in politics or power for the freeholders of 
the North ; soon the South must submit to the will of the majority. 

Feeling as they did ; believing, as they had always been taught to 
believe, in the supreme right of the State to say what it wanted and 
what it would have ; seeing the power slipping away from them and 
thinking that without slave labor ruin was certain to come upon them, 
it is scarceh" to be wondered at that the leaders in the South tried 
first to force things in their favor, and, failing in this, threatened to 
withdraw from the Union whenever they saw fit. 

For years their hold upon the Government, aided by the selfish 
desire of people in the North to avoid all trouble and annoyance had 
given the Southern leaders '' the say " in national affairs. It was 
these leaders who had brought about the purchase of the vast 
territory of Louisiana in 1803; they had insisted on the slavery 
line in the Missouri Compromise in 1820 ; they had demanded the 
annexation of Texas in 1845 ; they had put into effect the cruel 
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; they had forced the unwilling and 
fatal '• squatter sovereignty " clause into the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 
1854 ; they had attempted to bring about the acquisition of Cuba in 
1854 ; they had forced from the Supreme Court the decision that it 
was the duty of Congress to protect slavery in the territories (known 
as the " Dred Scott Decision " of 1856) ; they had sought, as a 
desperate measure of safety, to reintroduce the horrible African 
Slave Trade in 1859, and, as a final move, they had asserted in 1860 
their determination to leave the Union — to " secede " — unless 
they obtained their " rights." 

But the leaders of the North were growing each year more and 
more determined. To be sure^ the peoj^le did not pay very much 
attention to all this talk ; they were too busy about their own 



FOR UNION. 



205 



affairs. But those who did look into things declared that it was time 
to put an end to Southern presumption. To the Southern leaders 
they said : You can regulate the slave question so far as 3'our own 
section is concerned, but you must not try to force the North and 
West into slavery. You have broken the agreement of 1820, 




AMONG THE SUGAR CANE. 



known as the Missouri Compromise, but we will make Kansas a 
free State in spite of you ; you have compelled the courts to say 
that Congress must protect slavery in the territories, but this we 
will never consent to ; you have shown a desire to make slavery 
a national institution, but that you shall never do ; and we warn 
you that the Constitution does not admit the right of any State to 



206 FOR UNION. 

say just what it shall do or how it shall act, and that no State 
has a right to leave the Union of its own accord. 

The breach was widening. The United States of America were 
becoming sectional — that is, slavery, believed in by the South, ab- 
horred by the North, was setting North and South at enmity. To- 
day slavery is dead, and North and South can never again be arrayed 
against one another ; but in 1860 slavery tinged everything. The 
love of it led to the brutal assault upon Senator Charles Sumner of 
Massachusetts and beat him from his chair in the Senate in 1856 ; 
the hatred of it led to the armed attack in Virginia in 1859 precipitated 
by a free-soil partisan and known as " John Brown's raid," and both 
the attack on Sumner and the " raid " of John Brown, though both 
were the result of a fiery fanaticism and though neither of them 
were due to the plottings of rival parties, were still fastened upon 
the sections from which the actors came, and increased the growing 
ancrer that was showino; itself North and South. 

It was in the midst of this growing discord that the presidential 
election of 1860 came as, what we call, the climax. The Democratic 
party split in two and made separate nominations ; the Republican 
party raised the cry of " No extension of slavery ! " and by a total 
of one hundred and eighty electoral votes carried the day, and 
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was elected president. 

The hottest and most determined of the Southern States was 
South Carolina. From the days of President Andrew Jackson and 
the " Nullifiers," it had always maintained its right to leave the 
Union, and the election of Lincoln gave it the opportunity it sought. 
A Northern president, backed by the Northern people, means the 
downfall of the South, said South Carolina. I shall leave the Union, 
and you, my comrades of the Cotton States, if you know what is best 
for you, will go out too. 

The State Convention of South Carolina at once assembled and on 
the twentieth of December, 1860, passed an " ordinance of secession," 
wiped out the act by which the State had so many years before de- 



FOR UNION. 



207 



clared its acceptance of the Constitution of the United States, and 
declared that " the Union now subsisting between South Carolina 
and other States, under the name of the United States of America '* 
was dissolved. 

Led on by the bold step of South Carolina the other " Cotton 
States" followed suit, and in January and February, 1861, similar 
ordinances of secession were passed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, 
Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. 

Acting quickly, the secession element in the seven rebellious 
States at once proceeded to " force the issue." They sent delegates 
to a general convention held at Montgomery in 
Alabama, set up a government under the name 
of the Confederate States of America, adopted 
a constitution (that was almost exactly the same 
as the Constitution of the United States, with 
slavery and State sovereignty added), elected 
Jefferson Davis as president, established " depart- 
ments" of state, war, the treasury, the navy, 
etc., decided upon a great seal and flag (popu- 
larly called the " stars and bars," as against the 
"stars and stripes"), and prepared to defend 
their action by war if need be. But, they all 
declared, that will scarcely be necessary ; the North will not fight. 

And, at first, it did look as though the North would not fight. 
President Buchanan did nothing ; he said he did not see how he could 
prevent a State from seceding if it really desired or attempted to ; 
the politicians said : 0, the trouble will be fixed up with another 
compromise ; the chief associates of the president were really in 
sympathy with the secessionists, and when Congress adjourned in 
March, 1861, no step had been taken to secure the protection or 
uphold the dignity of the United States of America. 

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president of the United 
States on the fourth of March, 1861. At once he found himself 




great seal of the 
'federacy." 



CON- 



208 FOE IWION. 

face to face with the greatest difficulties. He was the head of a 
new party, without experience and without standing. He was con- 
fronted by seven States in open rebeUion to the constituted autliority 
of the National Government. The men from whose hands he 
received the reins of power were hostile to his party and his prin- 
ciples and had helped rather than hindered the efforts of the 
" State's Rights rebels." . Forts, arsenals, mints, custom houses, 
ship yards, naval stores and other public properties of the United 
States had been deliberately seized by the States within whose borders 
they were located, and transferred to the new " Confederate " 
government. The little arm}* of the United States had been 
scattered and forced to surrender to the rebels. Officers of the army 
and navy, representatives and senators in Congress and officials in 
the service and pay of the United States, declared that they must 
'' follow their State," resigned their stations or offices and went to 
their homes. In the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, Fort 
Sumter, one of the very few forts still held by the United States 
troops, was surrounded and besieged by the South Carolina forces, 
and, of the navy of the United States, only two insignificant vessels 
were ready for service along the whole Atlantic coast. To such a 
pass had Southern scheming and the sympathy or stupidit}^ of the 
party in power brought the dignity and the ability of the United 
States. 

Abraham Lincoln was clear-headed and far-sighted. He felt that 
the new administration stood on dangerous ground. One hasty 
move, one tyrannical act might turn the tide against the Union — 
and with him the preservation of the Union was the leading desire. 

His inaugural address, now held by critics to be one of the great- 
est state papers in history, while full of the hope of peace, was still 
firm and unfaltering in its purpose to maintain the Union, whatever 
happened. 

" The Union is unbroken," he said ; " and to the extent of my 
ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins 




ABKAHAM LIJN^COLN. 

Sixteenth president of the United States. 



FOR UNION. 



211 



upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all 
the States." And then, placing the responsibility where it rightly 
belonged — upon those who struck the first blow — he said : " In 
your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is 
the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict without 
being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn 
one to preserve, protect and defend it." 

There is an old, old proverb that declares : Whom the gods would 
destroy they first make mad. The destruction of slavery was 
ordained ; but its supporters were surely mad- 
dened and blinded by passion or they would 
have heeded, before it was too late, the tender 
appeal to their memories with which this first 
inaugural of President Lincoln concluded : " We 
are not enemies," he said, " but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may 
have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretch- 
ing from every battle-field and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearthstone all over 
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature." 

But kind words and brotherly appeals were of no avail. The 
leaders of the South were determined. And when, in April, President 
Lincoln ordered a fleet to sail to Charleston with supplies to the 
starving garrison of Fort Sumter, the fiery cry for action came from 
the chiefs of the rebellion. " You must sprinkle blood in the face 
of the people ! " one of them declared. South Carolina, as she had 
led the revolt, fired the first shot. On the twelfth of April, 1861, 
the Confederate batteries in Charleston Harbor opened fire upon 
Port Sumter which, for thirty-six hours, the commandant. Major 




SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Die of 1885. 



212 



FOR UNION. 



Robert Anderson, held in the face of a fierce bombardment. Then 
with ammunition exhausted, provisions gone and the building on fire, 
Major Anderson surrendered. The flag of the Union gave place to 
the flag of rebellion and the first victory of secession was won. 

But it was a victory that proved defeat. The South had struck 
the first blow and that settled the question in the North. The word 
"Sumter has been fired on," flew from city to city and from town 




FOKT SmiTER IN CHARLKSTON HARBOR. 



to town. There was but one response : The Union shall be 
preserved ! The North which — so the Southern leaders had de- 
clared — would be torn and rent by feud and dispute if civil 
war was threatened, became, instead, united in an instant. Men 
who had bitterly opposed one another in politics now joined 
hands in defense of an imperiled Union. From school-house and 
court-house, from church and railway station, from hotel, from 



A FIGHT FOE LIFE. 



213 



public building and from private house, the flag of the Union 
was flung to the breeze ; and when, the daj after Sumter, Presi- 
dent Lincoln declared the Southern States in rebellion, and called 
for volunteers to put it down, the struggle for life or death was 
at hand. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 



THAT shot at Sumter, as has been shown, roused the North 
to action. " Why, this is open rebellion ! " everybody 
cried, and at once without regard to party the men of the 
North — Republicans and Democrats alike — sprang to 
arms. President Lincoln, on the fifteenth of April, called 
for seventy-five thousand men '' to put down the rebelhon " ; four 
times as many responded ; militia regiments hur- 
ried to the defense of Washington ; old soldiers 
who had seen service were in demand as officers ; 
money for war purposes was voted 
by States and cities ; the " war gover- 
nors " were patriotic, active and alert ; 
new regiments were speedily formed 
or "recruited" in every Northern State, 
and though the city of Washington lay 
on the border of the Southern land it 
was soon so circled with Union troops 
that its safety was speedily assured. 

But the " war-fever " was not confined 




214 



A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 




to the North. The conflict was to be a struggle between Ameri- 
can citizens, and when once the American spirit of resistance 
is aroused, enthusiasm and determination know no section. The 
South, led into war by the efforts of its leaders, was bound to follow 
the lead of South Carolina. The attack on Sumter and the rising in 
the North were followed by quite as much ex- 
citement and enthusiasm in the South ; one 
after another the seceding States wheeled into 
line ; the Confederate Government called for 
thirty-five thousand volunteers, and, as in the 
North, four times as many offered their services. 
Men enlist to fight for various reasons. Love 
of excitement, hope of reward, desire for glory, 
love of country — these are the principal causes, 
and in the war between the States, from 1861 
to 1865, these reasons led many young men 
to leave their comfortable homes, their studies, their occupations, 
their pleasures and their gains, and with sword at side or gun at 
shoulder to march South or North to fight for a principle dear 
alike to each. 

From the attack on Sumter on the twelfth of April, 1861, and the 
first blood at Baltimore on the nineteenth of April following, down 
to the surrender of General Lee, the chief of the Confederate forces, 
on the ninth of April, 1865 — almost four years to a day — the 
fight for life, for Union, for supremacy, went fiercely on. All too 
soon the people. North and South, awoke to the sad truth that this 
was an American war — a " duel to the death," a strife between 
equally brave and equally determined foemen. The seventy-five 
thousand volunteers first called for in the North grew to an army 
of three million men before the end came ; the thirty-five thousand 
volunteers of the South grew to a million and a half. In 1863 
when the strife was at its height and the struggle was the fiercest, 
the North had nearly a million men in the field ; the South had 



A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 



215 



seven hundred thousand. The North, as the defenders of the 
Union, operating in a hostile country, had need for a larger force 
than the South ; conquered territory must be garrisoned ; lines 
of communication needed to be kept open and defended, and a 
stretch of battle front reaching from the Mississippi to the sea de- 
manded constant watching to prevent invasion, raid or occupation. 




IN THE ENLISTMENT OFFICE. 



Steadily, year by year, the power of the Union was more and 
more displayed. The South fought bravely, stubbornly, heroically, 
but from the first the result of the struggle could be foreseen. The 
North had the stronger arm and this at last must win the day. But 



216 A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 

■when that day came the cost of the fearful fight had been six hun- 
dred thousand Nortliern and Southern Uves laid down for a principle 
and six thousand millions of dollars spent. This it had cost to destroy 
the doctrine of the sovereign power of the State as opposed to the 
supremacy of the nation, to do awa}' forever with slavery on Ameri- 
can soil and to make of the United States a real nation ; this it had 
cost to make the republic a unit, to secure perpetual peace and a 
lasting union to all Americans forever. 

The war was a stubborn strife, not because of any hatred between 
North and South — for this there really was not — but because of 
the determination of both contesting sides to win. From 1861 to 
1863 the government at Washington was busied in surrounding the 
confederacy in its encircling grasp; from 1863 to 1865 this grasp 
was gradually closed and tightened until it held within it the armies 
and the cities of the South. The battle of Gettysburg in the East 
and the capture of Vicksburg in the West, on or about the fourth of 
July, 1863, marked the turning point of the war. 

Even in the first year of the war, although the Union army lost 
its first great battle (Bull Run, July 21, 1861), and in the West found 
itself defeated at Wilson's Creek (August 10, 1861), it still advanced 
its lines into the southern territory and narrowed the limits of 
the Confederacy. In the second year, still more territory was cap- 
tured ; but, within its lessening territory, the Confederate army stood 
firm and confident, undismayed by its defeat at Antietam in the 
East (September 17, 1862) and Pittsburgh Landing in the West 
(April 7, 1862). In the third year both sides being now trained to 
war, clinched for a decisive grapple. General Lee and his splen- 
didly disciplined army in the East made a wonderful attempt to 
break through the Union lines and invade the North, but fell back, 
baffled and defeated, at Gettysburg (July 3, 1863). Lookout Moun- 
tain gave the victory to the Union army in the West, and the 
grapple of 1863 ended in a loss of strength and confidence for the 
South. In the fourth year the fight raged about Richmond, now 



> 

SI 

o 



'^ 




A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 219 

the Confederate capital, where Lee, proving himself a great soldier, 
was at last pitted against a greater — General U. S. Grant. There 
it became the fight of the giants, while at the West General Sher- 
man utterly crushed out the Confederate army and making his bold 
and remarkable " march to the sea," hurried northward to give his 
help to Grant. In the fifth year the Union grasp tightened ; the 
forces of the Confederacy lay now within the hand of the Federal 
government ; its territory had shrunk to the narrow sea strip be- 
tween Richmond and Charleston ; Sherman drew nearer to Grant ; in 
April the end came ; the grasp closed around the encircled Confed- 
erates and the surrender of General Lee on the ninth of April, 1865, 
with the consequent surrender of General Johnston on April 26 
closed the stubborn strife, and ended the possibility of Americans 
ever again meeting in the shock and struggle of civil war. 

The war between the States had been fought for a principle, and 
by its results that principle was forever assured — the Union was 
established, the nation was supreme. "My paramount object," said 
President Lincoln, "is: to save the Union." He did save it; and 
Americans can never cease to revere the unfaltering faith in his 
cause that sustained the great president, nor need they ever regret 
the cost in blood and treasure at which the American Union was 
saved from destruction. 

But the war settled other questions than that of national suprem- 
acy. Especially did it end forever on American soil the curse of 
human slavery. From the first, men saw — more and more clearly 
as the days went by — that slavery was doomed. The war was not 
fought to abolish slavery, but slavery was abolished because of the 
war. The conflict, however, had been raging a year and a half ; 
twenty thousand men had laid down their lives ; eighty thousand 
had been maimed or crippled in battle and many other thousands had 
been stricken down by sickness and disease before the stern necessity 
that men knew existed but that the Government hesitated to ac- 
knowledge was made into an absolute deed — emancipation. But 



220 



A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 



% °r The i 



the step was taken at last. Five days after the battle of Antietam 
— on the twenty-second of September, 1862 — President Lincoln 
made the greatest move of the Avar and issued a proclamation de- 
claring that on and after the first day of January, 1863, " all persons 
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the 
people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States 
shall be thenceforward and forever free." On the first of January, 
1863, the official proclamation of emancipation was issued. "And 

thus," says Mr. Schurz, " Abraham 
Lincoln wrote his name upon the 
books of history with the title dearest 
to his heart — the liberator of the 
slave." 

Fighting is a bloody and brutal ex- 
pedient — a course always to be avoided 
if in justice and honor it can be 
avoided. But when war comes it must 
be made effective by every possible 
means. The abolition of slavery was 
one of these means ; the abolition of 
wooden war-ships was another. The 
war led thinking people to suggest and 
invent many improvements in firearms, camp equipage and the mu- 
nitions of war, but the cunning brain of Captain John Ericsson revo- 
lutionized the navies of the world and showed that iron could float 
and fight on the water. The story of his little ironclad vessel, the 
Monitor, is as simple as it is stirring. The Confederates had taken 
the captured frigate, Merrimac, fitted her with an iron overcoat and 
sent her to destroy the Union war-ships around Fortress Monroe. 
This she did and was about starting out on a voyage of destruction 
among the sea-coast cities of the North, when on the morning of the 
ninth of March, 1862, the little Monitor (" a cheese-box on a raft," 
so the Confederates called her ), appeared on the scene, fought the 




A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 



221 



Merrimac for four hours and drove her back to cover. From that 
day wooden war-vessels were doomed. Ironclads were built by all 
the nations as the only safe and sure kind of sea-fighters; and " the 
white squadron" of 1891 is the natural result in the navy of the 
United States of Ericsson's plucky little Monitor. 

The war, though terrible and bloody, really helped to make men 
and women gentler and more thoughtful. It taught the people to 
look after those who were fighting their battles for them. Societies 
were formed for the careful protection of the soldiers' interests : to 
help them as they marched to battle, to help them as they lived in 
camp, to help them as they fell wounded on the field, to help them 
as they lay sick or maimed in hospital, to help them as they returned 
disabled to their homes. The greatest of ^ 

the societies, the United States Sanitary 
Commission, expended millions of dollars 
in thus helping the soldiers. And, last 
but not least, the humanity that was a 
result of this long and bitter war was one 
of its most blessed influences. The war 
was in fact an armed rebellion against 
national authority. Such uprisings, before 
and since, have always, when unsuccessful, 
been attended by punishment for treason 
inflicted by the victorious government. 
The American civil war resulted in the 
triumph of the national government, and 
yet not one " rebel " was punished for 
his treason ; not one of the leaders of 
the revolt was made to suffer the historic penalty of his action. 

The war had been in progress for more than three years when in 
November, 1864, a presidential election was held. The minority 
party — those timid Northerners who declared that the war was a 
failure and ought to cease — rallying imder the Democratic banner, 




WORKING FOR THE SOLDIERS. 



222 



A FIGHT FOR LIFE. 



nominated for president, General George B. McClellan, one of the 
brilliant but unsuccessful Union generals — a remarkable organizer 
of forces, but not a successful -leader of troops ; the Republicans 
(including very many " war Democrats " ) re-nominated Abraham 
Lincoln, and the result proved their wisdom. Mr. Lincoln was re- 
elected by two hundred 
and twelve out of the two 
hundred and thirty-three 
electoral votes and, under 
his guidance, the war was 
fought out to the end that 
was, even then, in sight. 
But, when that end 
came, the great president, 
throuijrh whose wisdom 
and patience it had been 
reached, fell suddenly — 
the chief martyr of the 
great conflict, done to 
death by the bullet of 
an obscure assassin, from 
no other reason than a 
desire for that notoriety 
that Americans, it is 
hoped, will never grant. Abraham Lincoln may well be called 
the great American. Springing from the people, reared in poverty, 
struggling against hardship, attractive neither in form nor feature, 
with everything against him, he yet conquered every obstacle and 
rose from the obscurity of a backwoods '^ railsplitter " to be presi- 
dent of the United States, preserver and savior of the Union and 
the greatest, the best and the most honored of modern Americans. 




A REUNITED NATION. 



223 



CHAPTER XXIV, 



A REUNITED N'ATION. 




i^^ 



'BRAHAM LINCOLN died on the fifteenth of April, 1865. 
Amid the tremendous excitement that followed the intelli- 
gence of the dastardly deed and aroused all the vindictive 
passions of startled men and women, Andrew Johnson of 
Tennessee, elected as vice-president, took the oath of office 
and became president of the United States. 

The war was over. The veteran soldiers of Generals Grant and 
Sherman marched in final review before 
the officers of the government they had 
saved. The tattered armies of the Con- 
federacy, surrendering to foemen who 
worked in the spirit of the dead presi- 
dent's grandest words: "With malice 
toward none, with charity for all," re- 
turned to their homes, and two milhon 
Northern and Southern fighters became 
again Jaw-abiding citizens, honest, hard- 
Avorking, ambitious Americans. 

The war was over; but now came 
the hardest part of the work — to reunite 
and put into running order the affairs 
of the whole nation. The seceding 
States had seen fit, solemnly and offici- 
ally, to break away from their consti- 
tutional associations and " go out " of 
the Union. Now they must come back. 




ho:me again. 



224 



A REUNITED NATION. 



But how ? It was <a question to puzzle the clearest mind ; it led 
to grave and conflicting actions in the White House and the Capitol. 
President Johnson was an honest but obstinate man. He was a 
Unionist and a War Democrat. But he also believed in certain 
rights of the States and was unwilling that the seceded States should 
be "kept out" of the Union. He said : " They are all in the Union, 

rebel and Unionist alike." But 
Cono-ress decreed otherwise. 

When the war began the North 
held that no State could break up 
the Union and that those that Jiad 
withdrawn must be forced to come 
back without any change of con- 
ditions. But the war had destroyed 
slavery. The Thirteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the 
United States forever abolishing 
slavery had been accepted b}' three 
fourths of all the States, and was 
declared a part of the Constitution 
in December, 1865. Nearly four 
millions of negroes (" freedmen," 
as they were called) were emanci- 
pated by this Amendment. K the 
States came back again they must 
accept this change in the Constitu- 
tion. It was clear that the Governments of the seceding States must, 
to a certain extent, be made over again — that is, " reconstructed." 
And so the six or seven j^ears succeeding the war are known as 
years of reconstruction. Almost from the start there had been a 
disaocreement as to methods between President Johnson and Ccng^ress. 
Of course the return of peace found things in a very confused con- 
dition in the South. The leadino; men of the Southern States had 




ANDREW JOHNSON. 

Seventeenth priiHtdent of the United States. 



A REUNITED NATION. 



225 



been in rebellion against the National Government, and Congress 
did not propose to at once allow them a voice in the direction of 
affairs ; the relations between the black people and the white were 
full of uncertainty and trouble and the unsettled state of certain 
sections of the southern country led to all sorts of disturbances and 
worries. President Johnson, it seemed to the Republican Congress, 




THE CAPITOL OF THE UNITED STATES. 



vas too ready to take the side of the white people of the South, 
who had not yet shown themselves repentant for their part in the 
war ; and Congress, so it seemed to President Johnson, was bent on 
keeping tlie former leaders of the South out of power and giving 
too much '' protection " to the ignorant freedmen. There was 



226 



A REUNITED NATION'. 




ULYSSES SIMPSON GIJANT. 
Eighteenth president of the United Stales. 



justice on both sides, but this ulwaj'S makes a dispute all the more 
bitter and so there was a fierce quarrel between the President and 
Congress which led at last to the impeachment of President Johnson 
when, in 1867, he disobeyed one of the orders of Congress. This 
"impeachment" declared that the President was guilty of disobey- 
ing the laws. He was tried by the Senate, according to the direction 



A REUNITED NATION. 



227 



of the Constitution, but in order to remove him from office, it re- 
quired that two thirds of the senators should vote that he was guilty. 
The vote stood : " Guilty " — thirty-five ; " Not guilty " — nineteen. 
This was not a two thirds vote and the President was acquitted. 

In the midst of this " reconstruction " trouble and when all the 
States, excepting Virginia, Mississippi and Texas, had (on their 
acceptance of the conditions imposed by Congress) been restored 
to their old place in the Union, President Johnson's term of office 
expired. It had been a stormy time, but even through all the dif- 
ferences of opinion, the people of the North and South were coming 
nearer together, though yet sore and stubborn over many things. 

The result of the Presidential election of 18G8 endorsed the 
position taken by the Repubhcan Congress. The most popular man 
in the country w\as selected as candidate by the Repubhcans. His 
success was assured from the start, and General U. S. Grant, the 
invincible leader of the Union armies, was elected president by 
two hundred and fourteen out of the 
two hundred and ninety-four electoral 
votes. 

Little by little affairs improved in 
the South. The Fourteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution wdiich decreed 
" equal rights " to all men — white 
and black — and the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment, which decreed universal suffrage 
to all, were accepted, or ratified, by 
three fourths of the States ; and though 
at first the results were full of danger 
in the South where unprincipled white 
men sought to use to their own in- 
terest the new voting power that had been given to the negroes, 
this evil in time righted itself, and year by year the scars of war 
were healed in the South ; the spirit of progress entered in and 




OLD FRKNCH MARKET, NEW ORLEANS. 



228 



A REUNITED NATION. 



the " caq3et bagger" and the "scalawag," the "Ku-Klux Klan " 

and the other violent elements in Southern society gave place to 

quiet, prosperous and loyal Americans. But the real and final end 

to all these troubles did not come for years. 

In 1872 the presidential 
election still turned upon 
Southern affairs ; s o m e 
even of the Republicans 
were dissatisfied with the 
course of their representa- 
tives in Congress and, join- 
ing with the Democrats, 
nominated for president 
an old-time anti-slavery 
Republican and the great- 
est of American newspaper 
editors, Horace Greele}^ of 
New York. But the bulk 
of the Republican party 
remained loyal to Con- 
gress ; the Democrats, as 
a mass, could not bring 
themselves to support their 
old antagonist, Greeley ; 
many of them abstained 
from votino; and President 
Grant, who had been re- 
nominated by the Repub- 
licans, was triumphantly 

re-elected by two hundred and eighty-six of the three hundred 

and sixty-six electoral votes. 

By this time the Southern States were fully restored to all the 

rights and privileges enjoyed by the entire Union ; a free pardon 




RUTHEKFORD BIRCIIARD HAYES. 

Nineteenth president of the United States. 



A REVNITED NATION. 



229 



had been given to all who had taken part in the Civil War ; and 
the principles of universal suffrage existed throughout the nation. 
But the quiet determination of the white people in the South to 
secure control of political affairs, resulted finally in the retirement 
of the negroes from their temporary power and for years the negro 
voters were "• terrorized," as it was called, by the white leaders who 
gradually gained the power they desired and simply kept the black 
vote '-under control." 

In 1876 nearly all the Southern States were Democratic again 
and the presidential election of that year was so close because of 




THE ART GALLERY — CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION OF 1876. 



the changed condition of political affairs that it very nearly resulted 
in serious trouble. The Republican candidate for President, Ruther- 
ford B. Hayes of Ohio, and the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. 
Tilden of New York, received an equal number of electoral votes, 
while both parties claimed to have carried the States of Florida 
and Louisiana. There was much excitement over this result ; the 



230 



A REUNITED NATION. 



question was referred to Congress which was also antagonistic — 
the Senate being RepubUcan and the House Democratic. It was 
finally referred to a special committee of fifteen, called the 
" Electoral Commission." After a careful examination into all 




the disputed points, this Commission finally decided that the Re- 
publican candidate had been elected, and Rutherford B. Hayes was 
inaugurated as the nineteenth president of the United States. 

It was now the year 1876. One hundred years had passed since 
the Declaration of Independence had been signed in the city of 
Philadelphia and the republic of the United States had grown from 
thirteen straggling and struggling colonies into a nation of thirty- 
eight great and prosperous States. The wounds and worries of the 
fearful war days were almost healed and forgotten ; South and 
North were both advancing rapidly toward wealth and strength and, 
from a population of three millions in 1776, the Republic had grown 
to more than forty-tw^o millions. Invention, education, intelligence, 
wealth and productive power had correspondingly increased and it 
seemed wise to the reunited country to show the whole world what 
these hundred years of national existence and growth had made of 



AFTER AN HhNBRED YEARS. 



231 



the uncertiin experiment of republican government which so many 
people had disbelieved in when the new nation started out in life. 

So, in the year 1876, in the city of Philadelphia, where independ- 
ence had been proclaimed, the states and territories of the United 
States of America held a great exhibition of its manufactures, in- 
ventions, materials and products and to this " Centennial Exhibition " 
all the rest of the world brought over the best they had, to add to 
the great display. 

It was a fitting and peaceful celebration of one hundred years of 
progress. From ocean to ocean the land was free, united and pros- 
perous and could proudly proclaim to all the world the successful 
working out, through years of struggle and worry, of obstacle and 
war, of persistent effort and unyielding will, of the problem of uni- 
versal liberty for the first time in the history of the world. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 




HEN President Hayes took the oath of office on the fourth 
of March, 1877, the United States entered upon a wel- 
come season of calm. Peace had come at last; the sec- 
tional disputes and feuds brought about by slavery, that 
had filled the land with worry and anxiety for over 
seventy years, were stilled forever ; no great political question 
was uppermost to disturb the minds of men and women and all 
the energies of America were devoted to the upbuilding of the re- 
united nation, the payment of the vast debt brought about by the 
war, and the development of all the mighty resources of the land. 



€6-^ 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



This national debt at the close of the war, in 1865, was nearly 
three thousand millions of dollars. In less than a year over seventy 
millions of this great debt had been paid ; each succeeding year has 
reduced it more and more, and the United States has proved the 
wisdom of that old proverb that is as true of nations as of men and 
boys : Out of debt is out of danger.* 

Between the years 1861 and 1876 five new States were admitted 
to the Union. These Avere : Kan><as in 1861, West Virginia (made 
of the loyal portion of the old State of Virginia) in 18G3, Nevada in 










SITKA, THE CAPITAL OF ALASKA. 



1864, Nebraska in 1867 and Colorado in 1876. In 1867 the terri- 
tory of Alaska, at the extreme northwestern corner of the North 
American continent, w\as purchased from Russia at a cost of over 
seven millions of dollars and the United States had grown in 1876 
from its original area of 827,844 square miles to a territory embrac- 
ing 3,603,884 square miles. 

As more and more people went west, drawm by the hope of find- 



*"In twenty years," saj's Mr. Johnston, " the Unitptl States lias paid about twelve hundred millions of its 
debt, and only stops now because its creditors will not consent to be paid any further at present." 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



233 




"THE NEW WAY TO INDIA. 



ing gold in Ciiiifornia or by the hope of successful farming and 
cattle-raising in other sections, men saw the need of a quicker and 
safer mode of traveling overland than the slow-going emigrant 
trains, the rattling stage-coach or the galloping pony express. The 
dangers of travel across the plains from hostile Indians, highway 
robbers, lack of water, and, sometimes, starvation and death kept 
many from going into the new lands, but still the number grew 
year by year. It was evi- 
dent that quicker methods 
were demanded, and in 1862, 
with the assistance of Con- 
gress, a company of railroad 
men began the building of 
the Central Pacific Railroad, 
to run from Omaha in Ne- 
braska to San Francisco 
m California. Across the 
plains and over the Rocky Mountains the iron trail was stretched 
and in 1869 the great enterprise was completed and the continent 
was spanned. The Old World speedily learned the value of this 
new system of rapid transportation. Fast steamers g,cross the 
Atlantic were connected by this railroad with fast steamers across 
the Pacific, and the life-work of Columbus to find " the new way to 
India " was at last realized in a manner never dreamed of by the 
great admiral. 

But even before the iron rails had been stretched across the 
continent, another marvelous connection had been formed when, 
in 1866, the telegraph wires of the Atlantic Cable were successfully 
laid at the bottom of the ocean, thus joining Europe and America 
by an electric bond. 

The cable and the railways, the successful ending of the Civil 
War, the development of the rich farming and mining lands of the 
far west attracted the attention of the world to America, and each 



i:34 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



year brought hosts of emigrants from over-crowded and over-worried 
Europe to find and found homes in the great republic. These, too, 
helped to people and improve the unoccupied lands of the west, 
and the growth of the nation in population and prosperity showed 
a large yearly increase. 

The methods and habits of life in the America of 1876 were 
vastly different from those of 1776. If such remarkable inventions 
as the steam engine and the telegraph had revolutionized the ways of 
people, the advance made in intelligence and education had an 

equal effect upon the minds and 

manners of men. Two thirds of 
all the boys and girls of America 
were being taught in the public 
schools ; academies and colleges 
were increasing in numbers and ad- 
vantages ; invention was astonishing the 
world with its marvels of construction ; 
science was enlarging opportunity with 
its wonders of discovery ; intellect was 
broadening knowledge with its fruits of 
thought, and more and more Americans 
were using their brains for the enlight- 
ening, the improving and the uplifting 
of their fellow-men. 

The century of America's existence 
as a nation that had begun with Wash- 
ington and Franklin, Jefferson and 
Adams, Hamilton and Madison, had de- 
veloped such statesmen as Webster and Clay and Calhoun and 
Sumner ; such soldiers as Jackson and Scott jmd Grant and Sherman 
and Lee ; such sailors as Lawrence and Perry and Farragut and 
Porter ; such inventors as Whitney and Fulton and Morse and Howe 
and McCormick, and Ericsson and Hoe ; such explorers and path- 




AT THE COTTON LOOM. 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



235 



finders as Wilkes and Fremont and Kane ; such writers and poets 
cind thinkers as Emerson and Bancroft, Prescott and Motlpy Loner- 
fellow and Lowell, Whittier and Holmes, Agassiz and Hawthorne 
and Harriet Beecher Stowe; such orators and teachers as Everett 
and Beecher and Horace 
Mann; such a philan- 
thropist as Peter Cooper ; 
such a leader as Abraham 
Lincoln. 

That first century had 
fought out to a victorious 
conclusion the great bat- 
tle of human rights and 
national supremacy ; it 
had established public 
schools and popular edu- 
cation ; it had reformed 
the habits and the 
thought of men; it had 
extended the borders of 
the United States of 
America from a strag- 
ghng Hne of coastwise 
colonies to a land that 
stretched from ocean to 
ocean and covered an area equal to the whole of Europe — and 
this comparison would leave out all of New England, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and both the Virginias, for the United 
States, at the close of its first century, found itself nineteen times 
larger than France, twenty times larger than Spain and seventy- 
eight times larger than England. 

The American Republic had successfully fought a terrible civil 
war m order to maintain its authority and preserve its union ; but 




RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



236 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



during those years of war it had also held its position among the 
nations of the earth, some of whom hated and many of whom were 
jealous of it, because of its prosperity and its establishment of 
republican ideas. Even when that struggle was at its height, its 
old ally, France, sought to take advantage of its stress and of 
Mexico's weakness; it defied the American declaration of ''The 

Monroe Doctrine " and aimed to 
establish a monarchy in Mexico, 
upheld by French bayonets and 
ruled over by nn Austrian prince. 
Thereupon the Government of 
the United States spoke out 
boldly, demanding the with- 
drawal of the French soldiers 
from Mexican soil ; troops were 
moved toward the Mexican bor- 
der ; the French Emperor, Na- 
poleon the Third, taking the hint 
in time, withdrew his soldiers ; 
the Austrian prince was shot as 
a usurper by Mexican patriots 
and the attemj t at a foreign 
monarchy in Mexico closed in 
utter failure. 

The United States also de- 
manded justice and payment from 
Great Britain because of England's assistance to Confederate priva- 
teers during the war. England long resisted the claim, but the great 
republic was equally determined and, as a result, instead of stupidly 
going to war over the question, as had been the custom in earlier 
days, it was decided to let certain calm-minded and clear-headed 
outsiders decide the rights in the case. So the " Alabama Claims," 
as they were called (because the chief of the rebel " commerce- 




A 



WILLIAM H. PIIESCOTT. 



AFTER AN HUNDRED YEARS. 



237 





HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 



destroyers " was the privateer Alabama), were submitted for discus- 
sion to five men appointed by Great Britain, the United States, 
Italy, Switzerland and Brazil. These men met in 1872 at Geneva, 
in Switzerland ; they talked the whole matter over, decided that 
Great Britain had done wrong and ordered that she should pay to 



238 



AFTER AX 11 VXD RED YEARS. 



the United States as "damages" the sum of fifteen milHons of 
dollars. 

From this important event dates the employment of what is 
known as " arbitration " in settling disputes between nations. 
This is so much better and juster and nobler than war that it 

looks as if, in time, it will be 
adopted in the world's quarrels, 
and that sword and cannon will 
only be used as a sign of power 
or as the very last resort. 

Thus it was, that, with popula- 
tion growing steadily, with a 
prosperity that was almost con- 
tinuous and with new wealth flow- 
ing into its treasuries and the 
pockets of its people, with gold 
and silver, coal and oil and nat- 
nral gas being constantly dis- 
covered in new and rich sections, 
with manufactures growing and 
improving, and production in 
every branch of industry becom- 
ing each year larger and more 
far-reaching, the United States 
of America closed its first hun- 
PETER COOPER. drcd ycars of life. The nation 

was at peace. The South, re- 
covering from its years of war, with a load of poverty and debt 
that was almost crushing and with the new and conflicting social 
elements that must come from the downfall of slavery, still stood \\\) 
manfully to its task; slowly it made good its losses and its set- 
backs ; capital and energy both came to its aid ; the former slave 
worked to better advantage as a free man, and the '' New Soiuii," 




GROWING I Is TO GREATNESS. 



239 



is It was called, blessed by free labor and the noble exertions of 
Its people, began at last to take its part in the development of 
the nation and, together. North and South entered upon America's 
second century in peace, in prosperity, in union and in a mutual 
desire for self-helping and for national growth. 



CHAPTER XXYI. 



GROWING INTO GREATNESS. 

J-Y\ ^^^^ ^^ "^ saying — probably familiar to you all — that 
\ I "nothing succeeds like success." The advance made by 

.WJK-A the United States of America in material prosperity since 
the year 1876 is but a fresh proof of the truth of this 
well-known adage. Before 1880 began fifty millions of 
people lived m the land. Railroads and telegraphs zigzagged across 
It in every direction and the wonderful discoveries in ele'^tricity led 
the way toward the triumph of the telephone, the phonoo-raph the 
arc and incandescent Hghts that to-day, in 1891, make you all so 
far ahead of the boys and girls who hailed the close of the War of 
the Rebellion. 

Truly, the last half of the nineteenth centurv has been a o-reat 
time m which to live, even though the boys and girls of to-day — 
who are indeed the heirs of all the ages of thought and work that 
Avent before them — do not appreciate their advantages. Think of 
the things that make life comfortable to-day that your grandfathers 
and grandmothers knew but little or nothing of in t.ieir early youth. 
Gas instead of dip and candle; electric lights instead of flint and 



240 GROWING INTO GREATNESS. 

steel, or the whale oil that fifty years ago everybody burned ; par- 
lor cars and palace steamboats in place of stage-coach and canal- 
boat; bridges instead of ferry-boats ; the typewriter instead of the 
pen ; sewing machines in place of needles ; ploughing, planting, 
mowing and reaping machines in place of the slow-going affairs of 
our grandfathers' day ; the bicycle, the camera, the electric car — 
these and hundreds of other w^onderful improvements that the boys 
.and girls of to-day accept as matters-of-course and look to see still 
further improved, are not only new to the world since the days "■ be- 
fore the w\ar," but are really the fruits of the success that has come 
to the great American republic since its centennial year of 1876. 

Some of these advances were the outcome of the years of calm 
and quiet that marked the administration of President Hayes. In 
those days however w^ere heard the mutterings of the unrest that 
always accompanies success, for where money is not equally dis- 
tributed some are certain to get richer than others and those who 
have to work and struggle without great success are apt to grow 
envious and jealous of those who outstrip them in the race. So, in 
some sections of the land, certain of the working people — the men 
in factories or shops, or on railroads, docks and extensive works of pro- 
ducing or of building — began to say that they ought to be allowed 
to arrano-e their own wasres and demanded more than their em- 
plovers were willing to pay them. Failing to receive what they 
asked for they laid down their tools, compelled their fellow-Avork- 
men to throw aside theirs and, as it is called, " went out on a strike." 

Sometimes these strikes were very disastrous to business interests 
and to personal rights. The railroad strikes of 1877 broke out into 
riot at Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, and led to the loss of nearly one 
hundred lives and the destruction of over three million dollars' 
worth of property. 

There was also much discussion over money matters during the 
administration of President Hayes. The law that made gold the 
standard of vidues in money and said that a gold dollar was worth 



GROWING INTO GREATNESS. 



241 



more money than a silver one caused much dissatisfaction and 
uneasiness, especially among the farmers and the working people. 
But in 1878 a new law was made by Congress placing an equal 
value on silver and gold in purchasing and paying power. 

The tariff, the labor question and the silver money values were 
leading issues of the presidential campaign of 1880, but the Repub- 
lican party was again successful and James A. Garfield of Ohio was 
elected president by a total of two hundred and fifteen electoral 
votes. Mr. Garfield was a man 
of strong character, impressive pres- 
ence and great ability, but he was 
called upon at once to face the dis- 
graceful struggle, for place and 
position which the politicians and 
office seekers in his party made, 
after his election. In the midst of 
such a struggle at the opening of 
his second term of office President 
Lincoln had said : " Now we have 
conquered the rebellion, but here 
is something more dangerous to 
the republic than the rebellion 
itself." 

His words were almost prophetic, 
for this struggle for the " spoils of 
office " that disgraced the country 
until the wiser ideas of what we 
call " the civil-service reform " grew 
into repute cost the nation the life of one of its most promising 
presidents. The strife for place and power between opposing fac- 
tions and self-seeking men in the Republican party raged hotly 
about President Garfield and on the second of July, 1881 — within 
less than four months after his inauguration — he was foully 




JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Twentieth president of the United States. 



242 



GROWING INTO GREATNESS. 



assassinated in the railway depot in Washington, struck down by 
the cowardly hand of a miserable and disappointed " office seeker." 
In great suifering, heroically borne, for eighty days President 
Garfield lingered on, and died on the nineteenth of September 
at the cottage on the New Jersey seashore to which he had been 
removed. The Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur of New York, 

succeeded him as president and his 
administration was one of general 
prosperity with but few disasters 
and but few drawbacks. A reform 
in the " civil service " — that is, the 
appointment of the public officers 
of the o-overnment — was brous-ht 
about by the sad death of Garfield 
and in 1883 Congress passed the 
Civil Service Act which provided for 
appointments to office on the ground 
of fitness rather than as payment 
for political service. This is a great 
step and will in time make the vast 
army of office holders called for by 
the needs of so large a government 
as ours the faithful servants of the 
public rather than the hangers-on 
of politicians. 

During President Arthur's term 
of office the oft-discussed tariff question came again to the front. 
It w^as the leading issue in the presidential election of 1884 and 
the campaign was an exciting one. The election was close and 
turned finally on the vote of the State of New York which was cast 
for the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland of New York, who 
received two hundred and nineteen of the four hundred and one 
electoral votes. 




CHl.STF.i; A. ARTHUR. 



Twentyjirst president of the United States. 



GEOWIN-G INTO GEJBATNESS. 



243 



President Cleveland's administration — the first one under the 
auspices of the Democratic party since tliat of Buchanan twenty- 
four years before — gave general satisfaction, but that shifting opin- 
ion of the people, that makes it always uncertain just who they 
wish the most, changed 
again before four years had 
passed and the election of 
1888 proved a victory for 
the Republican party again 
and resulted in the election 
of Benjamin Harrison of 
Indiana as president by a 
total of two hundred and 
thirty-three electoral votes 
against one hundred and 
sixty-eight for President 
Cleveland, whom the Dem- 
ocrats had renominated. 
In this campaign the yet 
unsettled question of the 
tariff was the main issue 
and the two elements of 
opposition were known as 
Protectionists and Free- 
traders, according as they 
wished home manufactures 
protected or foreign goods 
brought into the country 
free of duty. 

President Harrison's administration opened in the midst of a 
discussion, that is still far from a conclusion, as to the rights and 
wrongs of the laboring classes and the rights and limit?.tions of 
the rich men of the land — the capitalists, monopolists, trusts and 




GROVER CLEVELAND. 

Tweiity-second president of the United States. 



244 



aRowma into greatness. 



syndicates. The working people combining into '•' trades unions " 
sought to force their demands and were confronted with resistance 
by the employers. The strikes and " boycotts " of the employees 
were met by the lockouts and " imported help " of the employers and 

both sides sought to take the 
^-.-.v-«v^--^-x~.. control of affairs into their 

own hands. The Ameri- 
can people, however, have 
never been patient under 
tyranny, and it is certain 
that neither the tyranny 
of '^ unions," nor the tyr- 
anny of riches can succeed 
in establishing itself per- 
manently in free America. 

Daring President Har- 
rison's administration six 
new States were admitted 
to the Union — North Da- 
kota, South Dakota, Mon- 
tana and Washington in 
1889, Idaho and Wyoming 
in 1890. To these new 
Commonwealths Utah was 
added by its admission to 
the Union in 1896, and 
since July 4 of that j'ear 
the stars on the flag — one 
for each State — have been 
forty-five in number. 
Following the great Jubilee Year of 1876, a series of centennial 
celebrations had. by recognizing important anniversary days, com- 
memorated the successful closing of the first one hundred years in the 




BENJAMIN HARRISON. 

Twenty-third president of the United States. 



aROwma into greatness. 



246 



life of the republic. It was during the administration of President 
Harrison that these "centennials" came to a close with the noble and 
fitting celebration in the city of New York, of the one hundredth 
anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States 
and the inaug-uration of Georgi:e 
Washington as the first president 
of the republic. For three days 
— April 30 to May 2, 1889 — the 
metropolis of America was gay 
with bunting, vocal with music, and 
alive with parades and pageants ; 
while President and ex-presidents, 
governors and high officials, joined 
with great throngs of people, in- 
cluding an army of marching school- 
boys, in honoring and commemorat- 
ing the beginnings of the nation in 
its days of small things, when amid 
the storm and stress of revolution 
and of war, the fathers of the re- 
jDublic laid the foundations upon 
which their children reared a g;reat 
and glorious structure. 

These centennial glorifications 
made all Americans just a trifle 
conceited, and led many of them 
to desire what is termed territorial 
expansion — that is, more land for 
the republic; so when, in 1893, the republic of Hawaii, a group of 
Pacific islands formery known as the Sandwich Islands, which had 
overthrown their native king and set up as a republic, came knock- 
ing for admittance at the doors of the United States, and asked to be 
joined to the American Union, many good Americans said, " Let her 




THE WASHINGTON ARCH. 

Erected at the entrance to Fifth Avenue in New York City, 
to commemorate the one httndreth anniverxary of 
Washington's inauguration as presi- 
dent of the United States. 



'€>,^ 



246 now WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

come in." Indeed, the request was very nearly granted, but a 
change of administration brought otlier rulers into power and other 
methods into action; the time was not yet ripe for so great a 
departure from the old ways ; the request of the islanders was not 
granted, and Hawaii remained an independent nation. 

This chansre of administration was the result of the defeat of the 

O 

Republican party at the national elections of 1892. This defeat was 
due to several causes, chief among which was the vexed question 
of the tariff, or how money should be raised and spent for the na- 
tion's good. 

The Democratic party once again triumphed at the polls, and 
Grover Cleveland was elected for a second time president of the 
United States, by a total of two hundred and seventy-seven electoral 
votes. 



CHAPTER XXVn. 

HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 






R. CLEVELAND'S second term opened with a great national 
jubilee. This was the celebration of the four hundredth 
anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher 
(Columbus. 

The celebration took the form of a splendid display of 
what America and the rest of the world were doing in the way of 
manufacture, science, art, literature, education, religion, and all the 
pursuits, industries, and pleasures of man. It was called the 
World's Columbian Exposition, and was held in the city of Chicago 
during six months of the year 1893. 



HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 247 

Tliis exhibition of the world's work, cand especially of America's 
progress, surpassed all previous displays of this kind. Upon the 
shores of Lake Michigan — that great fresh-water sea — there was 
built, within the limits of the bustling city of Chicago, a group of 
buildings, grand in design, marvellous in construction, and Aladdin- 




IN THE WHITE CITY. 

View Of a portion of the (/rounds of the Columbian Exhibition {WorkVs Fair), Chicai/o, 1803. 

like in beauty, all crowded with the masterpieces and triumphs of 
the world's work. To this great white city on the borders of Lake 
Michigan all the world came to see and wonder at the wealth, the 
power, the intelligence, and the magnificent resources of the mighty 
republic of the M-estern world. 

But pride often goes before a fall ; and it was but the old story 



248 JIOW WU CLOSED THE NIXETEEXTH CENTURY. 

repeated that the very j-ear of the Columbian jiiljilee closed in 
depression and disaster, in Avhat is known as the panic of 1893, when 
trade fell away, fortunes were lost, the people suffered, and in the 
midst of glory felt the clutch of need. It passed, however, as no 
financial panic could long dull the energies or stop the advance of so 
really prosperous a nation ; but the changes and revisions that such 
a time of depression made necessary caused much annoyance, and led 
to many readjustments which were unpleasant to experience ; while a 
great railroad strike in 1894 paralyzed trade, aroused the lower pas- 
sions of men, and demanded a taste of military discipline before it 
was finally closed, at a cost to the people of more than seven millions 
of dollars. 

These troubles set the people to thinking and talking, until finally 
they were again divided over the old and never-settled questions of 
the tariff and money, — whether the moneys raised by taxation should 
be simply for government expenses or for the protection of America's 
industries, and whether gold should be the standard of value or silver 
come in for an equal share. 

These questions were in high debate when the presidential election 
of 1896 came on. The two great parties were split and shaken by 
the opposing views, and what was called " the silver question " was 
made the great issue. There were gold Republicans and silver Ee- 
publicans, gold Democrats and silver Democrats, while a new party 
sprang into existence, demanding that the government should own 
and run everA'thing — railroads, telegraphs, and banks — just as it 
does the post-office. These men called themselves the People's Party, 
or the Populists. But the election was carried by the National Republi- 
cans, who, by a total of two hundred and seventy-one electoral votes, 
elected their candidate, William McKinley of Ohio, as the twenty-fifth 
president of the United States. 

President McKinlev at once set about a straigrhtenins; of the tariff 
troubles, according to the plans and promises made by the Republi- 
can party which had elected him ; but before the first year of his 



— 1-3 



^ o 

2 a 




MOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 251 

administration had closed, the nation was confronted with a more 
imperative and absorbing issue than that of money vahies or taxes. 
This was the serious trouble with Spain. 

For over four hundred years Spain had held an ever-weakening 
foothold on the American continent. 
The possessions given into her hand 
by Columbus, his companions and 
successors, had made her rich and 
powerful, but the very source of this 
power proved her own undoing ; her 
greed for gold led her to misuse her 
colonies, until one by one they re- 
volted from Spanish rule and became 
independent, even as the United 
States had broken away from Eng- 
land. 

At last, of all her American pos- 
sessions, nothing remained to Spain 
but the fertile islands of Cuba and 
Porto Rico in the West Indies. The 
restlessness against Spanish rule ex- 
tended in time to these, and the great 
island of Cuba was in frequent revolt, 
although Spain always spoke of it as 
•' The Ever Faithful Isle." Sympa- 
thizers in the United States helped 
on this discontent, and for nearly a 
hundred 3^ears the story of Cuba was 

the story of tyranny and revolt, and a plea to the United States 
for help. 

During the administration of President Grant, the troubles between 
Spain and her Cul)an subjects very nearly drew the United States 
into the strife; and thouo;h the '' misunderstandinor " was smoothed 




WILLIAM Mckinley. 

Twenty-fourth president of the United States. 



J 



252 



HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



away by skilful management, President Grant's Secretary of State, 
Hamilton Fish, declared that unless Spain changed her course and 
treated the Cubans better, things would grow worse and worse, until 
the United States would at last be forced to interfere, both because 
of business interests and in the cause of humanity. 

But Spain did not change her ways. 
Instead, more and more she angered 
the Cuban patriots, who loved their 
beautiful island home. At last, in 
1895, the trouble culminated in a de- 
termined revolt, which the governor 
and soldiers sent over the sea by 
Spain tried to stamp out by cruel and 
vicious means, in which persecution, 
tyranny, and murder played a dread- 
ful part. 

The Cubans appealed to the United 
States for aid ; and the government, 
aroused to action by the sufferings 
and misery of the Cubans, protested, 
and begged Spain to change her ways, 
or the great western republic would 
be forced to heed the cry for help, and 
interfere in behalf of the people who 
were suffering at her doors. 

When President McKinley came 
into office, the Cuban question was 
a pressing one. A strong spirit of 
sympathy for the Cubans was growing among the people of the 
United States, and men demanded that something be done to end 
this cruel condition of affairs. President McKinley was a man of 
peace. He had served as a soldier in the Civil War, and knew well 
all the terrors and horrors that war meant ; while armed intervention, 




MAJOK-GENERAL NELSON A. MILES. 

Commanding the armies of the United States 



HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 253 

which so many Americans desired, would,, he well knew, lead to war. 
This he wished to obviate if he could, and although the pressure 
brought upon him by unwise politicians and irresponsible newspapers 
was very strong, he was determined, if possible, to bring about a 
better condition of affairs in Cuba by peaceful means — or what is 
called diplomacy. 

The wiser part of the American people were on his side, and sought 
to help the president to this peaceful solution of the difficulty in every 
possible way. But on the 15th of February, 1898, a terrible thing 
happened. The United States Steamship Maine, one of the larges't 
and finest of the battleships of the new '' white navy " of the United 
States, while peacefully at anchor in Havana harbor, where it had 
been sent at the request of the United States consul, Fitzhugh Lee, 
Avas treacherously destroyed by a submarine explosion, and^ nearly 
three hundred of her officers and crew killed. 

This settled the matter. The voice of the people cried aloud for 
vengeance. But, even in the face of this popular demand for re- 
venge, President McKinley stood firm for simple justice by peaceful 
means if possible ; the thoughtful people of the nation rallied to his 
support ; and, wrought up though they were by this cowardly crime, 
with a splendid patience they calmly awaited the report of a naval 
committee appointed to seek an explanation of the disaster. 

But when the verdict came that the Maine was purposely destroyed, 
and when Spain made no satisfactory move to change ^natters in 
Cuba, or to make any reparation to the United States, the patience 
of the people seemed exhausted ; the newspapers, which had stirred 
up the passions of a great nation, urged on the trouble ; tlie people 
who were hot for war filled the land with their clamor, and Congress 
was roused to demand extreme measures, until at last the president 
felt that peace was impossible. Then only did he yield, and issued 
a proclamation stating that the existing condition of affairs in Cuba 
was unbearable, and must be changed, even if it led to war. 

Spain took tliis as an act of hostility, sent the United States Min- 



254 HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



ister out of Spain, and thus herself created the war that now seemed 
inevitable. Then the United States acted promptly. The president 
called for volunteers, the whole naval force of the United States was 
sent into Spanish waters to blockade the ports of Cuba, and an armv 
of 175,000 volunteers was summoned, recruited and put under 

arms for the invasion of Cuba. The 
United States and Spain were at last 
at war. 

It was an unnecessary and unwise 
war. Like others into which the 
United States had been forced, it 
might have been avoided, if gentler 
measures had been firmly insisted 
upon, and the people, hot-blooded 
over the crime against the Maine, 
and stirred to vengeance by the 
clamors of a heedless press and a 
vindictive Congress, had not over- 
ruled and forced the hand of the 
calm and peaceful president. But 
when once war was declared, the 
people hastened to uphold their pres- 
ident, and freely gave their money 
and their lives to carry out his meas- 
ures. The unity of the republic was 
never better displayed than in the 
American people's rally to the call of their chief ruler in this time 
of strain and stress. 

In less than one hundred days almost 225,000 men were mustered 
into the volunteer military service of the United States, while the reg- 
ular army was increased to about 60,000. This gave to the republic 
285.000 men of all arms ; and at the end of the hundred days, every 
man was fully e(|uipped for war. The quotas were speedily filled. 



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■»»v 



REAR-ADMIRAL WILLIAM T. SAMPSON. 

Commanding the United States Navy in Cuban Waters 



MOW WU CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



255 



volunteers were gathered and disciplined in their appointed camps, 
while the navy, splendidly organized, and greatly increased in ships 
and seamen, held the doors of Cuba closely guarded, and took prize 
after j^rize from the unready enemy. 

One of these fleets of the American 
navy gathered in Asiatic waters, and 
led by a brave and skilful sailor, 
Commodore George Dew^ey, made a 
sudden descent upon the city of Ma- 
nila, the capital of the Philippine 
Islands. It was Spain's strongest 
possession in the Pacific ; but on the 
1st of May, Dewey and his ships 
attacked and completely destroyed 
the Spanish fleet of eleven warships 
gathered in the harbor of Manila. 

This heroic and sweeping victory 
paralyzed Spain, and aroused the ad- 
miration of the world ; while the 
European powers, withheld from giv- 
ing aid or support to Spain by the 
friendly action of England, were 
forced to maintain a strict neutrality, 
and the United States and Spain were 
left to fight their quarrel to the end 
without the disturbance of outsiders. 

The war was short, sharp, and de- 
cisive. The United States is slow to enter into the bloody business of 
battle ; but, once emlxirked, it acts upon the advice that you will find 
Shakspere giving in the great play of '' Hamlet" : — 




REAR-ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY. 

Commanding the United States fleet in the battle 
Manila, May 1, ISilS. 



of 



" Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, 
Bear it that the opposed may beware of thee." 



256 



HOW W£ CLOSED THE XIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 



War was declared by Spain April 24, 1898. and on the 25tli, the 
American Congress called for the first quota of 175,000 troops. 
Within one hundred days the war was virtually over, and on the 
12th of August, 1898, President McKinley issued a proclamation an- 
nouncing a suspension of hostilities. On that day a protocol or pre- 
liminary treaty of peace w\as signed 
in AVashington by Secretary of State 
Day and the French Ambassador 
Cambon. who represented Spain. By 
this protocol Spain virtually gave up 
Cuba, ceded to the United States 
Porto Rico and the other Spanish 
possessions in the West Indies, and 
agreed to the American occupation of 
Manila until the disposition of the 
Philippines should be determined 
upon by a joint peace commission. 
The war had been one of the shortest 
on record. 

But within that three months of 
actual warfare the United States had 
shown that its old habit of securinir 
victory by the courage and dash of 
its fig;hting-men had not altered ; for 
in that brief period the navy of the 
United States had destroyed two 
great Spanish fleets. It had driven 
the flag of Spain from the ocean, and 
proved at once the valor of American 
seamen, and the superiority of American warships. Dewey, Schley, 
Sampson. Wainwright, Hobson, Philip, Evans, and a host of others, 
had given a new list of heroes to the annals of American naval 
warfare, and both the officers on the warships and '-the men behind 




COMMODORE WINFIELD SCOTT SCHLEY. 

Commanding in the naval battle off Santiago, 
July 3, 1898. 




^^J^^^^^^^w^^j^ 



OUR FLAG IN' HAWAII. 



(liaising the Stars and Stripes over the Palace in Honolulu, in token of American occupation and 
possession, August 12, 1898.) 



HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 259 

the guns " had displayed spirit, determination, courage, and courtesy 
that shed new lustre on the American navy, and gained fame and 
applause for the blue jackets of '98. 

Less than fifty days of actual land fighting had also shown the 
ability and proven the strength of the American soldier. In every 
case in which the land forces faced the Spanish troops victory was at 
once assured, and the skirmishes — they could scarcely be called 
battles — at Guasimas and El Caney and the hill of San Juan, at 
Santiago, in Porto Rico, and before Manila, gave a new renown to 
the regulars and volunteers, who amid all the unfavorable surround- 
ings of an unknown field, and in the heat of a tropic summer, pressed 
steadily on to victory, and once again made America proud of her 
sons on the field of battle. 

The dawn of peace brought many serious problems for the people 
of the United States to consider. Of these the greatest was the 
wisdom and justice of retaining conquered territory, and departing 
from the traditions of the republic by annexing outside possessions. 
Among these last was Hawaii. These beautiful islands of the mid- 
Pacific, which for years had been seeking admission to the American 
household became at last, by choice and necessity, part of the United 
States. On the 6th of July, 1898, the United States Senate voted to 
annex Hawaii, and on the 12th of August the flag of the Hawaiian 
republic was lowered, and the Stars and Stripes floated in possession 
above the new American territory of Hawaii. 

Territorial expansion ; the position of the United States among the 
great colonizers of the world ; imperialism or isolation ; the attitude 
of the republic toward those who by conquest or by choice become 
either a part or a dependency of the United States ; arbitration or 
war ; the position of the republic in the financial, commercial, and 
political afi:airs of the world, — tliese are among the great questions 
which the nineteenth century at its close gives the twentieth century 
to solve. But if the war with Spain had served no other purpose, 
it was clearly worth all it cost in blood and treasure, because it 



260 



HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



united forever in a bond of closer brotherhood North and South, East 
and West, making one again all classes of the American people. 

It was worth it, too, in the era of good feeling which it created 
between the historic foemen of the eighteenth century, England and 
America, and in its brinsino: into closer relations of friendliness, 
peace, and union all sections of the great English-speaking race. 

Thus the nineteenth century closes. To- 
day the republic of the United States of 
America counts a population within its own 
home borders of over seventy millions of 
people. Its wealth is almost boundless; its 
energy is tireless ; its intelligence universal. 
A countr}' the very existence of which four 
hundred years ago was unknown to the 
civilized w^orld, which three hundred years 
ago had not a settler, which two hundred 
years ago was but a scattered collection of 
feeble trading-posts and settlements, and 
which one hundred years ago was at once 
the problem and the butt of the great 
nations of Europe, — is to-day the second 
nation of the world in wealth, the first in 
energy, intelligence, and inherent power. 
The United States needs no standing army ; 
but millions of its citizens, as has been re-, 
peatedly displayed, stand ready to defend 
the integrity of their home-land in time of need, and maintain its 
honor against the menace of the world. It expends each year for 
education in its public schools one hundred and twenty-five millions 
of dollars, and educates therein ten millions of scholars ; four hundred 
colleges instruct one hundred thousand young men and women in the 
higher branches of study ; and a thousand daily newspapers carry in- 
telligence, instruction, and the spirit of progress into millions of homes. 




NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR RICHMOND PKARSOK 

HOBSON. 

Wlio blockaded Santiago harbor by slnkiuy 

the Merrimac, June 4, 1898. 



ROW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 261 



In the one hundred cand twenty-five years of independence nearly 
seventeen millions of foreign folks — emigrants from every nation 
across the eastern and western seas — have poured into the coun- 
try. Bringing here all their old-world notions, faiths, and ways, 
they have been a source of fear to the timid, and a problem to the 
lawmakers of the nation, who felt that a danger to the republic 
mitrht lie in this " invasion of America " by the hosts of the world's 
poor. The same problem of alien races in dependent 
lands faces the republic as a new century opens. But 
the true American has too much faith in the lasting 
value of the principles of freedom that liave made his 
country great to fear their overthrow by those who, in 
time, will become as good Americans as is he himself. 
Two hundred years from now, when all the conflicting 
elements of these days of emigration and annexation 
will have been lost in the mingling and mixing they 
must undergo, the United States will know neither 
German nor Irishman, Italian nor Chinaman, Spaniard 
nor Malay, Swede nor Hungarian, " Barbarian, Scyth- 
ian, bond or free;" for there will be but one imperial citizen, — the 
American. 

To-day the United States of America, giving equal rights and lui- 
restricted suffrage to all its citizens within its borders, with eighteen 
hundred "millions of acres of land in town and city, field and farm 
and forest, is worth over sixty billions of dollars, and leads the world 
in the production of cotton, wheat, cattle, pork, and minerals ; in 
miles of railroads and telegraphs ; in the ratio of intelligence, of 
church privileges, and Sunday-school instruction. 

In other words, the American republic has all the opportunities, all 
the possibilities, and all the probabilities of becoming within the next 
fifty years the greatest nation on the earth. Whether it shall also 
be the best, the brightest, the noblest, and the grandest, depends upon 
the boys and girls who to-day are receiving instruction in its schools ; 




262 HOW WE CLOSED THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

for by studying their country's past, they are learning lessons of 
patriotism; by guiding their action by the successes and failures of 
the explorer and colonist, the patriot and the citizen, of the days gone 
by, they will, with truth and honor, energy and good faith to help 
them on, make forever glorious and forever free the mighty land 
which four hundred vears ao;o was broug:ht to the knowledg-e of a 
ready and M\aiting world by the faith, the perseverance, and the 
courage of Christopher Columbus the Genoese. 



